Clerihews

Nymtoc

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Here's a humorous rhyming form we haven't tried, as far as I know. The novelist and humorist E.C. Bentley (1875-1956) invented it. The following is from Wikipedia:

A
clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. One of his best known is this (1905):

Sir Christopher Wren
Said "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. 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 and metre (for comic effect)
  • The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English Languages.
  • The first line contains, and may consist 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. The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick, and the clerihew form also parodies the eulogy.


That's wordy, but it describes the form well. It's a sort of anti-limerick, because meter doesn't matter here, just rhyme. Let's try some, using famous people of our own time. Here are a few I whipped up:

Michele Bachmann
Hired a rock man
To play sadly
Since in Iowa she was beaten so badly.

Glenn Beck
Said, "What the heck?
I know what I know
And as soon as the sky falls I'm gonna run around telling everybody, "I told you so!"

Paris Hilton longed to say
She starred in a Shakespearean play
But the only role she got
Was that of a maid who polishes Richard III's chamber pot.
 
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Archer Tiberius Joe
Has something he'd like you to know
He claims intellectual privilege
Tho' his head is stuffed full of trivilege
 

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A boozehound from Nantucket
Entered a local speakeasy toting a stolen milkmaid's bucket
For bathtub gin, he had no qualms
The undertaker claimed it practically embalms
 

Nymtoc

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Flyingtart
Thinks she's so smart.
She hid her manuscript in the forest tied with string.
Now she can't find the damned thing.
 

flyingtart

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Flyingtart
Thinks she's so smart.
She hid her manuscript in the forest tied with string.
Now she can't find the damned thing.

OK, admit it, you're stalking me, aren't you?:tongue


Nymtoc had a girlfriend and lent her
A bus pass to ride to the Lincoln Centre
But the poor girl missed the bus
And cried all the way home just to make a fuss.
 

Nymtoc

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Shakeysix
Knows a few tricks.
She chews bubble gum in class and pops a bubble
In the face of any kid who causes trouble.
 
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Robbert

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Going rogue
Has come into vogue
Oh Palin and Mr McCain
Please tell me how to show more of my disdain.
 

flyingtart

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Meryl Streep
Has made a leap
Into the world of politics
I'd give her chance of an Oscar as six out of six
 

Nymtoc

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Pthom
Remains calm
Even when some stupid asses
Pull his beard and break his glasses.
 

flyingtart

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Humphrey Bogart
Bought an old donkey cart
From which he sold ice cream
Or perhaps that was a dream
 

Nymtoc

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Hoskins, Harry
Is contrary.
When people try to tell him how much they like his work
He kicks them in the shins, the jerk.
 

Robbert

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The Pope
Smokes no dope.
His flock is equally abstinent
Although when caught they claim not to have inhaled the content.
 

flyingtart

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Rupert Murdoch
Bought a grandfather clock
But instead of tick
It laughed at the prick
 

Robbert

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Rupert Murdoch
Hickery dickery dock.
The SUN for one
Is the crappiest newspaper ever done.
 

Nymtoc

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Ronald Reagan
Was not a pagan.
He created an Eleventh Commandment for Republicans, but now they all flout it.
Fuggedaboutit.
 

Nymtoc

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George W. Bush
Didn't needed a push
To bomb, strafe, occupy and devastate a foreign country as Dick Cheney wished.
Mission accomplished.
 

Robbert

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A former president of the States
Sure much hates
To be reminded of two flying objects
Diminishing the fool's future prospects.
 

flyingtart

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Elizabeth Taylor once said
She'd rather be dead than rewed
But strange to relate
She'd never refuse a date
 

Alessandra Kelley

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I'm not sure who wrote this. It was in a collection of college humor dating from the 1920s through the 1950s:

Sigmund Freud
Was quite annoyed
At people crude
Who called him "frood."
 

Robbert

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Freud's psychoanalysis
And Joyce's Ulysses
May be appealing to some
Whilst others think it's scum.
 

Nymtoc

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Donald Trump,
That grump,
Thinks we all admire him.
The truth is we’d like to fire him.
 

Robbert

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Donald Drumpf
Is one loaded chump.
Donald's German ancestors
Wrote him off to American investors.
 

flyingtart

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The glamour model Heather Mills
Asked her ex-husband Paul to pay all her bills
But his answer, you see
Was "Let it Be"
 

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So let’s give a cheer for Rick Perry!
The dude from the wide Texas prairie!
He’s bold and he’s brash,
But he’ll never be President because he turned out to be a jerk and ran out of cash.