Clerihew

It’s fun Friday again so we are back to some light verse, this time, the clerihew. The rules are simple – four lines, the first two rhyme, the second two rhyme. The subject is named, usually at the end of the first line. These lines, according to Hirsch in A Poet’s Glossary, “whimsically encapsulate a person’s biography” and “There is usually something ludicrous in the deadpan send-up of a famous person, whose name appears as one of the rhymed words in the first couplet.” I don’t usually quote directly from a source, but this says it so well. The form was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a British crime writer, journalist, and poet.

I have a feeling where this may go. Keep it whimsical. I’ll start and also post some written by Bentley that I found lurking on the internet.

Here’s mine:

We know there’s a man named Hannity

telling stories of insanity

but we still believe in pain

as is happening in Ukraine.

 

Some of Bentley’s

 

The people of Spain think Cervantes

Equal to half-a-dozen Dantes:

An opinion resented most bitterly

By the people of Italy.

 

                          Geoffrey Chaucer

                          Took a bath (in a saucer)

                          In consequence of certain hints

                          Dropped by the Black Prince.

 

 

 

 

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