LIMERICKS

DEFINITION OF LIMERICK

A limerick is a poem that consists of five lines in a single stanza (verse) with
a rhyme scheme of AABBA. Most limericks are intended to be humorous, and
many are considered bawdy, suggestive, or downright indecent.
The subject of limericks is generally trivial or silly in nature. Most limericks are
considered “amateur” poetry due to their short length and relatively simplistic
structure. However, this does not take away from reader enjoyment of this
literary device.

Poetic Structure of Limerick

Though limericks are often humorous poems, their structure is straightforward

with strict compositional elements. These poems consist of exactly five lines,
arranged in a single stanza, with the rhyme scheme AABBA. Since limericks
are composed with the same structure and pattern, this separates them from
other forms of poetry and makes them easily recognizable.

With traditional limericks, the first, second, and fifth lines feature the same
verbal rhythm, rhyme, and have seven to ten syllables. The third and fourth
lines must rhyme (differently from the rhyme of lines one, two, and five),
feature the same rhythm, and have five to seven syllables.

Limericks follow anapestic meter, which consists of two unstressed syllables

followed by a stressed, third syllable. Lines one, two, and five feature three
anapests and lines three and four feature two anapests.
There was an Old man in a tree,

Who was horribly bored by a bee;

When they said, “Does it buzz?”

He replied, “Yes, it does!”

“It’s a regular brute of a bee!”

 There was an old man with a beard,

Who said, “It’s just as I feard!-

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard.”

 There was a Young Lady of Ryde,

Whose shoe-strings were seldom untied.

She purchased come clogs,

And some small spotted dogs,

And frequently walked about Ryde.

There was an Old Man of Quebec,

A beetle ran over his neck;

But he cried, “With a needle,

I’ll slay you, O beetle!”

That angry Old Man of Quebec.

 The Limerick is Furtive and Mean;

You must keep her in close quarantine,

Or she sneaks to the slums

And promptly becomes

Disorderly, Drunk and Obscene.

 A fellow jumped off a high wall,

And had a most terrible fall.

He went back to bed,

With a bump on his head,

That’s why you don’t jump off a wall.

 An elderly man called Keith,

Mislaid his set of false teeth.

They’d been laid on a chair,

He’d forgot they were there,

Sat down, and was bitten beneath.

 I know this big owl named Stu,
Who stays up all night yelling, “Hoo!”
Once an old man walked by
And he started to cry,
And answered, “I don’t have a clue!”
There once was a Farmer from Leeds,
Who swallowed a packet of seeds,
It soon came to pass,
He was covered with grass,
But has all the tomatoes he needs.
 There once was a very sad daddy,
Whose golf game was going quite badly.
He looked left and right-
No ball was in sight,
I think that he needed a caddy.
There once lived a boy near the ocean,
Who though he’d found magical potion.
He took a big drink,
And started to think,
It tasted just like suntan lotion.
 There once was a turkey named Chummy,
Mom thought that he might be quite yummy,
He waddled away
On Thanksgiving Day-
But still ended up in my tummy.