[Cicero]

Emmett Tyrell has named this prize after the southern poet J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901).

I just googled Coogler, and came up with three of his poems:

Title: ‘You Critics’

Oh you critics! - if an author errs in a single line
That line you’ll surely quote,
And will give it as a sample fair
Of all he ever wrote.

by J. Gordon Coogler

Title: ‘A Pretty Girl’

On her beautiful face there are smiles of grace
That linger in beauty serene
And there are no pimples, encircling her dimples,
As ever, as yet, I have seen.

by J. Gordon Coogler

Title: ‘How Strange Are Dreams!’

How strange are dreams! I dreamed the other night.
A dream that made me tremble,
Not with fear, but with a kind of strange reality;
My supper, though late, consisted of no cheese.

by J. Gordon Coogler

[dighton]

Alas, for the South! Her books have grown fewer—
She never was much given to literature.

— J. Gordon Coogler.

[dighton]

Oh you critics! — if an author errs in a single line
That line you’ll surely quote,
And will give it as a sample fair
Of all he ever wrote.

Great persecuted poets think alike:

And now kind friends, what I have wrote,
I hope you will pass o’er,
And not criticise as some have done,
Hitherto herebefore.

— Julia Moore, The Author’s Early Life.

[AnAmericanMother]

Dang! He's right up there with the deathless William McGonagall . . . . although nobody will ever surpass his "Ode to the Tay Bridge".

Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
I wish you success for many a year and a day,
And I hope thousands of people will come from far away,
Both high and low without delay,
From the North, South, East and West,
Because as a railway bridge thou art the best;
Thou standest unequalled to be seen
Near by Dundee and bonnie Magdalen Green.

More McGonagall - if you can stand it