19 February 2024 – Tickle your Funny Bone? – Limericks #01

Funny Bones & Funny Poems

As the folks on Monty Python say, “And now for something completely different.”

We’ve had years of mostly serious (many dark) poems written by you-know who over the past six years – the current lifetime of the Wannaskan Almanac.  Maybe it’s time to lighten up a bit. I mean, what is the humorested poetic form you can think of. It wouldn’t hurt if the form was easy to write. In short: the limerick is ideal. Humorous – yes. Easy – not so much.

Well, if funny poems tickle your funny bone, you are in luck. Today and for the next four posts, we will deliver just that. You’ all know the limerick the royal tickler. Yes, we will most certainly address this form in almost every post. But short, humorous poems don’t begin and end with limericks. The March 18 post will prove that. March 29’s offering explores the Bard fooling around with the short and witty. AND THEN . . . what you’ve been waiting for: the limerick’s forte – the taboo, the bawdy,the funny in the raunchy – what the limerick is famous for. Yes, we’re going to make you wait. No kissing – ‘er – no kidding.s

Here's what you’re in for over the next several weeks.

• 19 February 24 Limericks for funny bones and funny poems 
• 4 March 24 Limericks for laughs out loud and erudition to make you proud . . .
• 18 March 24 Other Short, Funny Poetic forms you may enjoy
• 29 March 24 The Play’s the Thing - Shakespeare’s short poems
• 1 April 24 Limericks = Things Bawdy and Taboo

One of the best things about limericks is that they are amenable to variation. Sure, a standard exists – we’ll have at that in the 4 March post. For now, permit me some leeway. Here is my first pitiful offering. My excuse is that it’s tax time which takes more days than you might think. But that’s another story. . .

AABBA – the first rule of the standard limerick. We could sprinkle a few adjectives around the subject of this poem, but that would break the suggested syllable count, a rule broken more often than not. Here lies my poor attempt at the form.

REAL LIVE(LY) LIMERICKS

        It’s tax time my dear harried friends

        But fifteen April it will end

        Then wait we will in heat or chill

        Hoping the postman is not ill

        And taxes won’t take every cent CatherineS

Yes, I’m preoccupied with tax preparation, as most of us are, so I beg your pardon for the limerick’s mundane topic. At least the poem is short. And don’t blame me if I don’t follow limerick “rules.” The limerick form is so well known that it has been parodied in many ways. The following example bends the rules on purpose to amusing effect. It is of unknown origin.

        There was a young man from Japan

        Whose limericks never would scan.

        And when they asked why,

        He said, "I do try!

        But when I get to the last line I try to fit in as many words as I can."

Here's one for the limerick ages. The British wordplay and recreational mathematics expert Leigh Mercer (1893–1977) devised the following mathematical limerick:

        12 + 144 + 20 + 3√4/7 + (5 × 11) = 9^2 + 0

This poem is read as follows:

        A dozen, a gross, and a score

        Plus three times the square root of four

        Divided by seven

        Plus five times eleven

        Is nine squared and not a bit more.

Here’s another wherein the poet has bested those who insist on rhyme schemes. That would be anyone who messes around with the form just for the heck of it. This first one was written by comedian, John Clark, based on the versions that follow by Edward Lear, from his Book of Nonsense. Yes, I know: it might get a snicker of a harumph, but certainly not a belly laugh.

        There was an old man with a beard,

        A funny old man with a beard

                He had a big beard

                A great big old beard

        That amusing old man with a beard

        There was an Old Man with a beard,

        Who said, "It is just as I feared!—

                ⁠Two Owls and a Hen,

                ⁠Four Larks and a Wren,

        Have all built their nests in my beard!"

        There was an Old Man with a beard,

        Who sat on a horse when he reared;

⁠                But they said, "Never mind!

⁠                You will fall off behind,

        You propitious Old Man with a beard!"

Background

The limerick form was popularized by Edward Lear in his first A Book of Nonsense (1846) and a later work, More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872). Lear wrote 212 limericks, mostly considered nonsense literature.

From a folkloric point of view, the form in its full glory when it is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function. According to Gershon Legman (first, Lear and now Legman. Sheesh! These two words could be part of a transgressive limerick just on their own. Suspect names at the very least name!)  Eneywhoze, Legman compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology. In the folk form the limerick is almost always obscene and the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males. Women figure in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims.” Legman dismissed the "clean" limerick as a "periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity". Its humor is not in the "punch line" ending but rather in the tension between meaning and its lack. 

Exploration 1: Where is the city of Limerick located? Is there any irony about that?

Exploration 2: What is ironic about Edward Lear’s last name? 

Exploration 3:  Care to try your left hand at writing your very own limerick? Make it as bawdy as you like – or not. To inspire you, read the following:

        There once was a lady from Schmunt

        Anatomically, just what you'd want.

                No part of her body

                Was large or shaped oddly.

        To say elsewise would be an affront.

This last one was written by Zach Weinersmith who parodied the raunchy character of many limericks. I mean, can you believe the names of these three limerick poets – Lear, Legman, and finally, Weinersmith? These three names are ready-made for a rollicking roll in the limerick hay!

Stay tuned for a few more weeks with this lusty poetic form, and start thinking about writing your own, best AABBA for which another prize will be awarded. 

More later . . .