The unappreciated limerick

[Hugo_Agogo_UK]

Limerick's are to poetry what Trump is to humility

Oral said the T word in chat
Hugo said we cannot have that
Plus your grocer’s apostrophe
Annoys me mildly
And is a ball-ache to rhyme

 

[EmilyMiller]

And is a ball-ache to rhyme

Lost to me

 

[EmilyMiller]

And is a ball-ache to rhyme

Colostomy

 

[EmilyMiller]

A challenge it is all the time
To get the words just to rhyme
But success is sweeter
In a constrained meter
And the results can be quite sublime

 

[AlinaX]

Oral said the T word in chat
Hugo said we cannot have that
Plus your grocer’s apostrophe
Annoys me mildly
And is a ball-ache to rhyme

Your grocer’s apostrophe
Is a pedant’s catastrophe?
But your mildly’s amusing me

 

[AlinaX]

The prize was a token that read
“For one night my wife’s yours instead”
But after the betting
The husband was sweating
As a syndicate took her to bed

 

[SimonDoom]

Limerick's are to poetry what Trump is to humility

A limerick's no ordinary rhyme.
It's a trumpeter next to a mime.
Perhaps a bit crass,
And lacking in class,
But it gives you a hella good time.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think people misconstrue Limericks. To me they aren’t art, they are wordplay. A technical exercise reliant upon a good vocabulary and a certain amount of creativity. They are little puzzles to be solved. Thought of that way, they are delightful to both write and read.

 

[yowser]

A randy young lady from Perth
Had a great fondness for girth.
Any erection
Without a deflection
Made her take it for all of its worth.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I’ve often wondered at the scorn cast, not only at limericks, but also their kissin’-cousins, puns.

Puns are often quite clever, yet bring little but groans. Limericks are often unfit for the table, but we’ve seen enough here showing both humour and a real intellectual bent. Is it the simple form? If so, why the even shorter haiku awarded great status?

 

[AlinaX]

Haiku is about stripping everything away and leaving something vivid and thought-provoking.

anorak - a dick prepares
for the wet

 

[SimonDoom]

I’ve often wondered at the scorn cast, not only at limericks, but also their kissin’-cousins, puns.

Puns are often quite clever, yet bring little but groans. Limericks are often unfit for the table, but we’ve seen enough here showing both humour and a real intellectual bent. Is it the simple form? If so, why the even shorter haiku awarded great status?

My honest opinion: The scorn is undeserved.

There was a time when people understood that art could be "great" and also lots of fun. I think Shakespeare wrote his plays with that attitude. Mozart composed his musical pieces with that attitude. Michaelangelo created the greatest paintings and sculptures of all time, but there's a raw sensuality and appeal to his work that is universal, that you feel on a gut level, and that you don't need a Ph.D. to appreciate. It's fair to say of all three of those artists works that they are "fun" if you open your mind and look at them that way.

At some point, in the early 1900s, things changed.

Now we fret about whether something is "art" or merely entertaining.

Wordplay is a form of art. Comedy is art. Limericks tend to focus on comic wordplay. There's something inherent in the rhyme scheme that makes limericks seem silly. But I don't think it's something to apologize for. I think if you look back over the history of this thread there's a lot of fun creativity, and I applaud every author who has contributed to this thread. I call that "art."

 

[BeechLeaf]

A young person like a summer's day
Was less shaken by the winds of May,
But the sun can be hot,
Though change thou wilt not,
As these lines are still read today.

---

Rough winds shake May buds,
But thy summer shall not fade,
These lines give thee life.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Is it the simple form

The constrained form is precisely the challenge. I guess it appeals to a certain type of person. But it certainly requires skill, at least if you want it to make sense and have the canonical meter.