The Goat of the Sea for National Poetry Day 2023 - Victorian Poetry

To celebrate National Poetry Day, we checked in with a slightly disgruntled steerage passenger...
The Goat of the Sea is an anonymous poem that was found on board the SS Great Britain in 1854 on a voyage from Melbourne to Liverpool. The poem lists complaints about the quality of provisions for steerage passengers - especially about being given ship’s biscuits instead of fresh bread. Highlighting that it was not always shipshape!
However, the poem undermining the reputation of the ship seemed to do the trick. John Henry Chatterton, who was a passenger on board at the time, wrote in his diary that after the poem was found “our provisions have materially improved in both quantity and quality.” #NationalPoetryDay