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Create your own clerihew
Let me start with a description from Wikipedia:
A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The lines are comically irregular in length, and the rhymes, often contrived, are structured AABB. One of his best known is this (1905):
Sir Christopher Wren
Went to dine with some men
He said, "If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing Saint Paul's."
A clerihew has the following properties:
• It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it pokes fun at mostly famous people
• It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect); the third and fourth lines are usually longer than the first two
• The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme
• The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of the subject's name.
Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd, anachronistic or commonplace setting, often giving them an over-simplified and slightly garbled description (similar to the schoolboy style of 1066 and All That).
The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick, and the clerihew form also parodies the eulogy.
Sir Humphry Davy
Was not fond of gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.
George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.
John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote Principles of Political Economy.
Tags: clerihew, fun, humor, words
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on -
Here are some of my attempts:
H. P. Lovecraft
Was often thought daft.
Cthulhu, though great,
Never put food on his plate.Edgar Allan Poe
Had only one foe.
Rufus Griswold was his name,
And hating Poe, his claim to fame.Charles Baudelaire
Once dyed his hair.
To best compliment his spleen
He chose an ugly shade of green.William Shakespeare
Was thought to be queer.
But Anne must have been handy
Those nights he felt randy.Lord Voldemort
Was not a good sport.
And got in hot water
For trying to kill Harry Potter.Frida Kahlo
Wore no halo.
Her sex life was fun,
Though she couldn't stand, walk, or run.Lord Alfredy Tennyson
Got sick on venison.
But he was never the worse
For writing good verse. -
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Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on
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Thanks.
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on -
Rick Santorum
In the end had no quorum
We all know he is likely queer
Under his self-righteous veneer
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Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on
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Heh!
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