I could examine the beauty and complexities of the great English poets, such as William Wordsworth, John Keats or Pam Ayres, but I don’t really enjoy poetry so I’m not going to.
However, I do like the odd limerick, the ruder and sillier the better. And the form is English so it still counts as English poetry. In my opinion.
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
Edward Lear popularised the limerick in his 1846 Book of Nonsense, such as the one below:
There was an Old Man with a gong,
Who bumped at it all day long;
But they called out, ‘O law!
You’re a horrid old bore!’
So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.
Here’s my quick attempt:
There was a young man from England
Who played lead trumpet in a brass band.
His lips were so strong
And his fingers most long
That with the ladies he was aways in demand.
Anyone else a fan of the limerick?
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Nice effort. When I was teaching I usually began my poetry unit having the students student poetic form including the limerick. Lear was right, the funniest ones were rarely clean.
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Yeah, I could have been a lot ruder but reined myself in!
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You made me smile … which isn’t something I normally say when the word “poetry” is bantered around 🙂
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Me neither…I usually drop off when poetry is being read or discussed!
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Hah! When I was in Grade 8 I wrote a limerick about every student in the class. Yeah – that kid. They got included in our informal yearbook and were meant in good fun and mostly taken that way. I still remember one: “Theresa is in class 8-3. / She sits right in front of me. / She tells us all tales. / At the speed of slow snails. / That’s why we’re all sleeping, you see.”
So yes, I’m a fan.
For what it’s worth, I also have a soft spot for Wordsworth. I love the idea of Spots in Time.
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Great limerick! We didn’t study poetry when I was at school, that’s probably why I don’t like it, I don’t understand it! Having looked up Wordsworth’s Spots in Time, I can see the attraction 🙂
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I can’t decide if I’m a fan of limericks or not. If they are too crudely rude then I don’t like them. Yours is a good one because it is subtle. 🙂
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Yeah, I changed my middle name from Rude to Subtle for this one!
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