http://www.holidayinsights.com/stpat/limerickday.htm




Limerick Challenge


A limerick is a five-line poem with a strict form (AABBA), originally popularized in English by Edward Lear, which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The following example of a limerick is of anonymous origin.

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Limerick Day is on May 12, 2009 (see above link). The challenge, of course, is to write a limerick, which we will collect and post as a compilation on May 12th.  Please indicate in your titles that your posts are for this challenge. Above all else, have fun!

 

 





Poetry by Editorial Team The PoetBay support member heart!
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Written on 2009-05-10 at 00:29

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NicholasG
The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth having eight or nine syllables and rhyming with one another, and the third and fourth having five or six and rhyming separately. Lines are usually written in the anapaestic meter, but can also be amphibrachic.

The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.

Within the genre, ordinary speech stress is often distorted in the first line, and may be regarded as a feature of the form: "There was a young man from the coast;" "There once was a girl from Detroit..." Legman takes this as a convention whereby prosody is violated simultaneously with propriety.[2] Exploitation of geographical names, especially exotic ones, is also common, and has been seen as invoking memories of geography lessons in order to subvert the decorum taught in the schoolroom; Legman finds that the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males, women figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims". The most prized limericks incorporate a kind of twist, which may be revealed in the final line or lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both. Many limericks show some form of internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or some element of word play.
2009-05-10