Monday 14 April 2014

comicaL or Lewd, either wiLL do




is for Limerick



The limerick is often comical, nonsensical and/or lewd.  It follows a five line rhyme scheme aabba, often used in children’s poetry and in parody. Puns and wordplay are common, and coined words are used in some cases for comic effect.  Mother Goose Rhymes and Edward Lear’s are very well known examples, though Lear preferred the term nonsense verse to limerick.  



The verse form follows strict syllable counts and a metre known as anapestic, which I won’t bother you with.  A rigid pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one (da da DUM).  Enough said.




If you want your poem limericked
two neat rhyming lines must be picked
and then you make do
with shorter lines two
and the last wraps it up anapesticked.


*** 


Some amount of weird and whacky play
this form allows, now don’t run away
thinking it’ll get lewd
must be fam'ly-friendly, dude!
and double entendre’s fine, but not risqué.


***


The pot called the ancient kettle black
and preened its slim, round self on the rack;
the kettle replied, stung -
at least I am well hung
and my front is quite distinct from my back.




As usual, I am not sure whether I have got the anapestiferous stuff right, but there they are. My limericks. Hope you enjoyed them. Read some more limericks over here and also here. 




Posted for the A-Z Challenge.



11 comments:

  1. Hi Nila! I hope the challenge is going well. I've been offline for awhile enjoying a much-needed holiday. Have blogged about it today. Meanwhile, I've been catching up with some A-Z posts. You have done SO MUCH WORK! I love limericks. They put things so succinctly! I prefer funny to lewd.

    Denise

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    1. Hi Denise, and so far so good, everything going better than I expected, managed to stay on top, phew! We have started with the school Easter break here as well, busier than term time somehow! I love limericks too, funny, lewd both, as long as they don't get too graphic :) See you soon.

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  2. Ooh this form I'm familiar with. Gotta love limericks. They're brillaince packaged in humour.
    Loved the conversation between the kettle and the pot.:)

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    1. Anything that raises a smile gotta be good :)

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  3. I never knew the rules about writing a specific type of poetry. Yours made me smile, good way to begin a dreary Monday morning. Have a great week, and best of luck with the continuation of a-z.

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  4. I also, prefer the funny to the lewd and you seemed to have done it perfectly!

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    1. That made my day, Yolanda! Doing funny right is very hard and takes serious effort!

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