A poetaster is a writer of insipid verse, a creator of rotten rhymes, a bad poet. The word carries delightful implications of misplaced pretentions to literary value. Coined in Latin by Erasmus, it was first used by Ben Jonson in 1600, and popularised as the title of his 1601 play, the Poetaster. Etymology: from Latin potea (poet) + aster (suffix that denotes a partial resemblance to, or inferiority).

“With self-awareness born of self-indulgence, Gregory examined his writings and realised that he stood on the border between adolescence and adulthood. He was a poetaster and not a poet. He read his words one last time, as if through a glass darkly, and then put the childish things behind him.”