The Queen of Short Poetry
by cricketjeff on July 13, 2011. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
The Limerick’s the finest of verse forms
The Queen of the well metered terse forms
It’s perfect for humour
Or spreading a rumour
And filth that gets written in worse forms!
Author notes
A Limerick, for those who don’t know, is a very strict verse form, which is
nevertheless surprisingly easy to write.
The first two lines are three “diDUMdi”s (amphibrachs if you want the posh
term)
The next two have just two
And the fifth line matches the first two, the lines with similar lengths all
rhyme.
If you want shorter, punchier rhymes you can drop the final “di” from either or
both types of line, but lines 1,2,5 and 3,4 must be the same length.
English