Iron Poet: Limericks Everywhere
You Don’t Have to be Irish to Write A Limerick
A limerick is a humorous, often silly, poetic style, which frequently plays tricks with meaning and spelling. The earliest written limericks were associated with drinking, and there is often a bawdy element involved.
A limerick has five lines, with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA. There is no specific requirement for the number of syllables per line, though the first, second, and fifth lines are longer than the third and fourth. The first four lines are usually a setup for the fifth line to be a punchline.
Examples of Limericks
Famous writers of limericks include Ogden Nash, Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, and William Shakespeare.
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill holds more than his belican.
He can take in his beak,
Enough food for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
There was a Young Lady of Dorking,
Who bought a large bonnet for walking;
But its colour and size,
So bedazzled her eyes,
That she…
