#17, Thursday Thirteen: Limericks

In school, I always loved writing poems in English. From haikus, free verse to limericks, I enjoyed the counting of syllables and the search for the perfect rhyme. Last year, I spent a lot of time in 9th grade Humanities ( the hoity, toity name for what we used to call English and History) and learned even more about iambic pentameter, tetrameter, and who knew that there were feet in poems? For Thursday Thirteen, here are 13 lessons/facts about limericks.

1. LIMERICK (noun) a humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba, popularized by Edward Lear who published a volume of limericks called: A Book of Nonsense in 1846.

2. The history of limericks: Variants of the form of poetry referred to as Limerick poems can be traced back to the fourteenth century English history. Limericks were used in Nursery Rhymes and other poems for children. But as limericks were short, relatively easy to compose and bawdy or sexual in nature they were often repeated by beggars or the working classes in the British pubs and taverns of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventh centuries. The poets who created these limericks were therefore often drunkards! Limericks were also referred to as dirty. (www.poetry-online.org )

3. How to write a limerick: it's a poem of five lines with lines 1, 2, 5 being longer lines than lines 3 and 4

4. The first line usually identifies a person or location.

5. Second line should expand upon the first line.

6. The third and fourth line should be about some action or problem for line 1.

7. And if you've forgotten what aabba stands for, it means that lines 1, 2 and 5 (the a's) all rhyme for each other which leaves 3 and 4 to rhyme with each other (the b's).

8. The first, second, and fifth lines have the same number of syllables usually 7 to 10 syllables. The third and fourth lines rhyme (forming a couplet), and have the same number of syllables, which are less than the first, second and fifth lines at 5-7 syllables.

9. Limericks often begin with: There once was. . . or There was a. . .

10. Here is a clean version of a famous limerick found at Wikipedia.

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket

11. Yes, even the Bard himself wrote some limericks and here is a sample from Othello, Act II, Scene III

And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink
A soldier's a man;
A life's but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.

12. A true limerick is supposed to have some sort of twist to it.

13. With the easy rhyming sequence, limericks are easy to create and are a great way to teach kids about rhyming and beats (syllables) in poetry.

Now that I have perhaps piqued your interest :

There once was a musing blog written by Jen
Who thought of contests that anyone could pen
From a story to haiku
What could a blogger do?
And a limerick contest was begun by Jen

Come on back to the blog on Friday for Contest details! Hint: Think about your blog and a limerick.

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