Dunno.

Is there anyone contemporary to compete with the c*nt who wrote Jonathan Livingstone Seagull?

Some literary equivalent of "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light"?

Dan Brown?

I liked Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I read it in a free period in 10th grade.

Brown's a good shout, but I was thinking more of someone who styled him or herself as a poet.

Paulo Coelho?

andrew motion?

Chubby Cyclist beat me to the punch. Absolutely spot on. Paolo Bloody Coelho by a fucking mile.

And if not Coelho then Frank McCourt and that Child Called "It" bloke for ushering in the tyrrany of "Unhappy Childhood" as an entire section in Waterstones. Pity porn.

That's a good call on Frank McCourt. The amount of dreadful "My Miserable Irish Childhood" books that have emerged in one form or another over the last decade has been horrendous. And, not merely imposing their miserable lives on the pity-porn addicts, they've also managed to create a form of Irish racial stereotype where all Irish people were brought up in miserable slums by evil parents. Probably more destructive even than the "drunk Irish enjoying the craic and a beer" idea of the 90s.

Not to defend McCourt, but is he really more responsible for that than Hornby is for the rooms full of atrociously bad rip-offs of Fever Pitch?

You can give McCourt additional grief for pushing the sequel (something Hornby has quite conciously never attempted), but I consider the primary responsibility for all of these "me too" schools of "literature" to be lazy editors and publishing houses run by people who "think" like the heads of Hollywood studios.

I find it hard to be offended by Dan Brown; he's just churning out a new flavour of airport thrillers.

And another candidate on the me-too ism line of bad writing, surely Helen Fielding is solely responsible for all those books with bad cartoony pictures of 30 something women with handbags and flowers and glasses of wine on them.

Wossname. James Patterson. Makes Dan Brown look like Dostoevsky.

Poetry has become so reclusive and segregated a genre that there's very little room left for real charlatans anymore.

I dunno, Pam Ayres?

To be honest, the correct answer is probably some arsehole working at Hallmark as a copywriter.

Yeah, poetry isn't really mainstream enough to do any damage.

It appears that the best selling volume of poetry by a living US author is by Jewel.

Yes, that one.

More than a million copies.

We may have a winner.

It's a toss up for me. Not strictly a bard, but two connected categories

Firstly, the growth in biography. I've had a couple of hit singles/run on big brother/two seasons in the premiership etc, here's my book. I was in borderstones over christmas and counted 16 continuous cases of this drivel.

Secondly, hoolie-lit. I'd like to say that I have no reason why people buy this, but the events in Manchester yesterday clearly show the appetite will be as strong as ever. And how can they all be the number one firm?

Pam Ayres A Charlatan- never. A neat cute light versifier.

You've got the wrong A

you're looking for Armitage, Simon.