Limerick Poetry Challenge
Write a limerick (learn how to write one here) about a famous poet or about writing poetry and post it in the comments section below. This challenge is brought to you by poet Roy E. Peterson, who wrote the three below sample limericks.
Wordsworth Love Daffodils
William Wordsworth well loved daffodils,
And once saw a bunch dancing up hills.
_Perhaps he was glad,
_Or else he was mad.
I wonder what kind were his pills.
Making Ink
When the poet’s pen lost all its ink,
He went to make more in his sink.
_He got some charcoal
_He smashed in the bowl
With vinegar, quick as a wink.
Poet Agents
The poet deemed his poems were best,
And decided to give them a test.
_He hired an agent
_And made his prepayment.
But they languished along with the rest.
A Limerick about Limericks
A Limerick’s five lines of fun,
and often it’s written to stun.
But if it’s not clever,
then strew your endeavour
with words such as ‘titty’ and ‘bum’.
Ha, Ha! Good contribution.
(Hot off the press)
If Shakespeare Hadst Considered the Limerick, Limerick
When iambs and couplets abounded,
a limerick’s use was unfounded.
Yet this poet sees,
the rhyme schemes two Bs
to Shakespeare’s ear would have resounded.
Shakespeare would have loved this one! A fun read.
“Frost-y Mugs”
Robert Frost was a metricist’s dream,
Unmatched in his rhythm and scheme.
Whether fired or iced, his cider was nice.
He and Elinor made quite a team!
Good one, Thomas! Loved the “fired or ice.”
Thanks, friend! I also thought of “apple picking” with the cider reference. Lol!
Alas!
There once was a witch on a broom.
Who took off in search of a groom.
She got lost in a blizzard.
And was caught by a wizard,
Who turned her into a mushroom!
–©️ Rupali Mistry, India
Rupali, that is very funny! A witch turned into a mushroom!
Thank you so much.
I enjoyed that!
Thank you so much.
Okay, so I decided to try my hand at a couple of limericks, below. Fun stuff, thanks.
He Told All
Have you read Dante’s poem about Hell?
He told all, and he told it so well,
You might think he led tours
To the place one abjures,
Did he end there himself? I can’t tell.
A Cold Head
My dear Washington Irving, so bold,
Of a headless horseman he told,
In the war, had he fought,
And had known what he taught.
His own head would be awfully cold!
Two excellent ones, Roger! Now I too wonder where Dante wound up.
Thank you, Roy.
A dynamo named Ezra Pound
Thought metrical verse was unsound.
With modernist fury
He fought it, quite sure he
Would smash it right into the ground.
Joseph, I was aware and now others of Ezra Pounds being unsound.
I love fury/sure he.
I love this. I wonder why Pound hated metrical verse…perhaps he struggled with it, gave up in despair, then decided if he couldn’t, no one else should either. Just a wild, undisciplined guess.
Apparently Pound didn’t hate metrical verse. His “Winter Is Icummen In” has both meter and rhyme.
Bob Browning hooked up with Liz Barrett
And both of them lived in a garret.
They had just one kid
But besides that, they did
Keep an mangy and flea-bitten parrot.
Joseph, what a surprise. I wonder if the parrot recited their lines when Bob was drunk on his wines!
A poetic rat named Old Wheezy,
Wrote sonnets both formal and breezy
The critics abhorred them
But mice all adored them
Because they all sounded so cheesy.
When Shakespeare wrote, “Lend me your ears,”
The Romans responded with cheers.
But the interest charged
On the loans grew enlarged
To the point where he fell in arrears.
Though as poet, Burns sang like a bird,
“Tam o’ Shanter” near failed, so I’ve heard.
When his publisher blanched
When the Scottish bard chanced
To demand he be paid by the word.
James, I am amazed at the concepts of all three poems! They are great from the wheezy and cheesy,, to the ears in arrears, and on to being paid by the word that Tam must have thought was absurd!
Ivan Pavlov was high on his grog
And he couldn’t come out of his fog.
As he suffered this hell
He awoke to the bell
And he yelled, “I must go feed the dog!”
What a great thought about the Pavlovian principle of how dogs and other animals are trained to respond!
A sickly, reflecting old Nietzsche
Had called in his tech-savvy Preacher.
Freddy said, “God is dead.”
Then the Preacher, he said,
“You know, Death’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”
Mike, that is really funny with a great ending!
Roy, maybe it should be, “Death IS a bug, not a feature!” !
E.A. Poe was obsessed with the tomb —
He worried about its dark gloom.
He pondered quite often
About a tight coffin
And how he’d be cramped in its room.
What a great limerick about Edgar and so consonant with his dark writings!
After Prufrock
No argument, I will grow old,
Perhaps even wear trousers rolled
But hair parted behind?
I think you will find
I’d rather eat a peach, truth be told.
Ah, great reference to Prufrock and funny encapsulation.
These are all brilliant… here’s one from me:
I don’t care if you ‘just want to say’
That you’ve eaten those plums up today
They may have been sweet
But they were my treat
And is that a poem? Oh nay!
Ah, Rohini, you have my empathy and sympathy! Thank you for tasteful limerick.
Thank you, Roy!
I just can’t help it! They are simply too easy to write! Here’s one on Percy:
Shelley was young and inspired —
He wrote florid verse, heaven-fired
With wild heartfelt sighs
And birds in the skies,
But his readers at length became tired.
Joseph, you certainly are in the groove! Wonderful stuff!
MUSES GOT INTO A FIGHT
By Roy E. Peterson
It was not long after midnight
Two muses got into a fight.
The poet said, quoth,
“I still love you both
But give me a rest for tonight.”
ON EDGAR ALLAN POE
By Roy E. Peterson
Ed Poe was a poet unshaven.
His poetry often was craven.
Like his poetry;
His death, mystery.
“Nevermore,” quoted the Raven.
TENNYSON AND “THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
By Roy E. Peterson
In “The Charge of the Light Brigade,”
600 men charged unafraid.
Those they left behind
Said they did not mind.
There was no victory parade.
THE MOBY DICK LIMERICK
By Roy E. Peterson
They said that the whale was a Dick.
He had green moss that hung on his prick.
The Captain Ahab
Had a gift of gab.
Herm’s poetry also was slick.
Poet Note
Herman Melville, the author of “Moby Dick,” was also famous for his poetry and in the 1800’s was considered one of the best American poets along with Williams Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson.
Very funny, Roy, especially the one about Moby’s Dick. I wonder where old Ahab was stuck, hung on his own petard, so to speak. Melville didn’t tell, but in any case, the whale got the last laugh.
Thank you, Roger. I usually do not write about such vulgarity but this thought was too good to pass up.
ChatGPT Limerick
When homework’s assigned to me,
I just go to ChatGPT.
My GPA score,
is sitting at 4,
but my brain’s now the size of a pea.
(The presenter at the AI workshop I was on last week, wasn’t impressed by the above)
Paul, I am impressed, because that is my greatest fear about the intellectual establishment. I am thankful I stopped teaching for the University of Phoenix a few years ago, because I can foresee exactly what you foresaw! Are grades relevant anymore?
SHAKESPEARE’S DARK LADY
By Roy E. Peterson
Shakespeare wrote of his dark lady.
A woman who must have been shady.
As a paramour,
She had lovers galore.
Perhaps she was fashioned in Hades.
It seems she had wires for hair.
Her complexion was dark and not fair.
With no rose on her cheeks,
He said her breath reeks.
No wonder he found his love rare.
The Luckiest Man in Kentucky
There once was a man from Kentucky,
who counted himself as unlucky:
his girlfriend, a cheater,
his truck was a beater—
his life had become downright sucky.
He drove himself down to the Buckey’s
to fuel up and jaw with the truckies.
Though life was a villain,
the lotto, a billion,
don’t play and you’ll never get lucky.
His trailer in Western Kentucky
held laughs like a squeezed rubber ducky—
despite all his blunders,
he matched all the numbers,
the luckiest man in Kentucky.
Even though this is not a poet or poetry related parody as in the challenge, these are excellent limericks for us to enjoy.
Whooooops missed that completely. I’ll try again.
Better?
Poetisserie Raven
I reckon ole Edgar was toking
to think that a bird he was quoting.
Then he got a cravin’—
rotisserie raven,
and changed what it was he was smoking.
Excellent and funny, Michael!
North Coast Suite
Minnesota
There’s a doctor who works in St. Paul
Who can fix fractured necks with an awl
Minneapolis folks
Who’ve grown tired of their yokes
Ought to give this great surgeon a call.
Wisconsin
A policeman patrolling Milwaukee
Thought his uniform made him look gawky,
So to keep himself svelte
He just tightened his belt
And got rid of that damned walkie-talkie.
Illinois
An importer of cheese in Chicago
With an underdeveloped imago,
Even though he knew better
Blew a sneeze on some cheddar
And re-labeled it fresh Asiago.
Indiana
A reporter assigned Terre Haute
Came awake with a pen in her throat.
Since her lover had fled
And had left her for dead,
On her pillowcase “Murder” she wrote.
Michigan
A procurer who lived in Detroit
Had a bevy of babes to exploit.
As a matter of fact
It was clients he lacked,
For his hookers were less than adroit.
These limericks by Kip Anderson are great, and they exemplify something that everyone attempting to write a limerick should know.
Very frequently, the basic source of a limerick is NOT an idea, NOT a narrative, NOT an opinion, and NOT a statement that you want to make. The basic source is the rhymes themselves! If you decide from the start which three A rhymes you are going to use, and you pick them to be perfect, unexpected, and facetious, you can compose the entire limerick around them, twisting any narrative or idea into whatever shape or weird concatenation allows you to use those three rhymes.
Look at Anderson’s “Wisconsin” — its force lies in the three words “Milwaukee,” “gawky,” and “walkie-talkie.” They rhyme perfectly, and yet are completely unrelated, and nevertheless it is around those perfect rhymes and their total disconnection that Kip builds an outstanding limerick.
He does the same thing with “Chicago, imago, Asiago;” and with “Detroit, exploit, adroit.” The actual words come first, and whatever little story or whimsical jeu d’esprit emerges from those three words is just a wonderful and surprising development. And this is what makes a great limerick great — a strange, silly, comic, and humorous flippancy is born that delights the reader, with no logical consistency or plan other that the desire to be amusing! If on the other hand, you were to start with an “idea” for the limerick, you’d immediately be trapped into choosing proper rhymes that support your idea, and this would be limiting and constrictive. Or even worse, you’d be forced to use near or slant rhymes, which are utterly fatal in limericks.
As for the two medial B rhymes, they simply provide a bit of connective stitching to give plausibility, and to prepare the reader for the final punchline.
I’m bringing this up to show that limericks are almost always PURE fictive mimesis, with no didactic purpose or syllogistic coherence or “higher goal.” They are just pure wordplay. And this why people love them.
C.B. even though these are not written about poetry or poets as presented in the challenge, I enjoyed these immensely. Dr. Salemi made some great points about writing limericks, and your out-of-nowhere ideas and great rhyme choices resound in his and my analysis. Thank you for sharing the fun.
I love these, especially your rhymes for Chicago.
MUSES GOT INTO A FIGHT
By Roy E. Peterson
It was not long after midnight
Two muses got into a fight.
The poet said, quoth,
“I still love you both
But give me a rest for tonight.”
PURPLE COW SHAKE
By Roy E. Peterson
Wit, Ogden Nash, reported how
He never saw a purple cow.
But grape milk shakes mixed
In my town were fixed.
So, I drank some I thus avow.
ROBERT FROST STOPPED BY SNOWY WOODS
By Roy E. Peterson
Robert Frost stopped by snowy woods.
His horse didn’t think it was good.
The horse hated snow;
They had miles to go.
Let us not stay in this “neigh”-borhood.
WHAT LURKS IN A POET’S HEART
By Roy E. Peterson
Some poets have a funny quirk
That deep within their heart doth lurk.
He wrote Jezebel
Was a hound from hell.
Bad words were not used in his work.
WILLIAM BLAKE MET A TIGER
By Roy E. Peterson
Into jungle walked Sir William Blake.
The bushes soon there started to shake.
Much to his surprise
He saw tiger eyes.
The kind that was real and not fake.
A limerick needs to be rude.
At the very least it should be crude.
If you can’t make it flirty,
or nasty or dirty,
At least make it loathsome or lewd.
My apologies for this one. 🙂
Apologies accepted but not needed. You were exactly correct about limericks, at least in the past being bawdy and suggestive. This is the perfect presentation of their original and primary purpose. Please do not apologize too much, for I have one about Moby Dick above that is about my only suggestive poem and/or limerick.
The very best and funniest limericks are sexual, because they have a sauciness and spice to them that pops the balloon of high-toned pretentiousness and propriety. They say what we dare not say in public, lest repressed people get upset.
Here are two of the best – not dirty or obscene, but highly sexed and provocative. One is about music, and the other is about painting.
A young violinist in Rio
Was seduced by a lady named Cleo.
As she pulled down her panties
She said “No andantes…
I want this allegro con brio.”
While Titian was mixing rose madder,
His model reclined on a ladder.
Her position to Titian
Suggested coition,
So he leapt up the ladder and had her.
The first is a brilliant conception using musical phraseology to create two metaphors of sexual speed (a slow-moving andante or a quick and lively allegro con brio). The second makes masterly use of internal rhyme (position/Titian and ladder/had her).
The crucial requirement in a limerick is that it be sharp, witty, insouciant, and as unexpected as a sudden firecracker. It can’t be soft and sweet and icky-poo.
Understood and those are two amazingly titilating lyrics.