James McIntyre
James McIntyre was a Scottish-born poet and undertaker who immigrated to Ontario, Canada, in the early 1840s. Born in Forres, Scotland, around 1827 or 1828, he later settled in Ingersoll, a community known for its rich agricultural output, particularly dairy products. McIntyre drew inspiration from his surroundings and often composed poetry on various topics, with a notable emphasis on farming, patriotism, and local culture. His most famous work is "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over Seven Thousand Pounds," commemorating a giant cheese produced in Ingersoll in 1866, which gained international attention.
Despite being regarded as a humorous poet—often featured in newspapers for comic relief—McIntyre did not intend for his work to be seen as funny. He published several volumes of poetry throughout his life, exploring themes relevant to his community and country. While his poetry was largely overlooked during his lifetime, later literary figures, such as William Arthur Deacon, helped to revive interest in his work. Today, McIntyre is often remembered as a unique figure in Canadian literature, sometimes described as the "worst poet" in Canadian history, reflecting the complexities of literary appreciation across different eras. He passed away on March 31, 1906.
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James McIntyre
Poet
- Born: May 25, 1828
- Birthplace: Forres, Scotland
- Died: March 31, 1906
- Place of death: Ingersoll, Canada
Biography
James McIntyre was born in Forres, Scotland, in 1827 or 1828; records show his baptism date as May 25, 1828. He immigrated to what is now Ontario, Canada, in about 1841, although the details of his relocation are not completely clear. He worked as a farm laborer, eventually moving into the furniture business in St. Catherines, although by 1858, he was living in Ingersoll, Ontario, and was working as an undertaker and furniture manufacturer.
It was in Ingersoll that he found inspiration for his poetry. The area around Ingersoll was rich farmland, well known for its production of dairy products, particularly cheese. McIntyre submitted occasional poems to local newspapers, and there is evidence that he was well loved by his community. He often spoke at local events, and his topic was invariably his love for Canada, for Oxford County, and for cheese. Indeed, it appears that McIntyre would write poems on any topic for any occasion, including farming, patriotism, Ontario towns, other poets and writers, and freemasonry.
Most of all, McIntyre appears to have been particularly found of writing about cheese. Sometime after 1866, he produced probably his most famous poem, “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over Seven Thousand Pounds.” He wrote this ode in commemoration of a cheese produced in Ingersoll in 1866 that subsequently toured the world. The poem opens with the line, “We have seen thee, Queen of Cheese. . . .”
McIntyre published two volumes of collected poems, Musing on the Banks of Canadian Thames, Including Poems on Local, Canadian, and British Subjects, and Lines on the Great Poets of England, Ireland, Scotland, and America, with a Glance at the Wars in Victoria’s Reign and Poems of James McIntyre. Oddly, in 1891, he published a number of the poems from his collection with a long essay, The Rise and Progress of the Canadian Cheese Trade and Descriptive Poems and Tales. Even in his own day, large newspapers sometimes published McIntyre’s work as comic relief, although he did not intend his work to be considered funny, nor did he consider it so. McIntyre died on March 31, 1906.
It is likely that McIntyre’s work would have been entirely forgotten had not William Arthur Deacon, literary editor of the Toronto Mail and Empire, reprinted McIntyre’s poetry in his 1927 book, The Four James. Roy A. Abrahamson also edited a collection of McIntyre’s poetry that he published with a collection of cheese recipes in 1979. Abrahamson referred to McIntyre as the “Chaucer of Cheese.” In 1997, Ross and Kathryn Petras included “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over Seven Thousand Pounds” in their collection, Very Bad Poetry.
Despite the total lack of interest in McIntyre’s poetry on the part of serious scholars, he holds an important distinction in the annals of Canadian literature: he is by and large considered the worst poet who ever lived and wrote in Canada.