Perhaps English Canada's best-known bad poet, James McIntyre, is noteworthy for his verse celebration of the dairy industry. He was also one of the main subjects of William Arthur Deacon's Four Jameses (1927), a satiric study of mediocre Canadian literature.

Born in Forres, Morayshire, Scotland, McIntyre immigrated to Canada West, now Ontario, either in 1841 or after 1843; details of his early life are obscure. After some years probably spent as a farm laborer and later as a furniture dealer in St. Catherines, by 1858 he had established himself as an undertaker and a manufacturer and retailer of furniture in Ingersoll, where he would remain until his death. He had two children by his wife, Euphemia Fraser: Alexander, who died in 1876 after injuries sustained in his father's furniture factory, and Kate, who would herself publish a volume of execrable verse (Rhymes Right or Wrong of Rainy River, 1926), some written in defense of...