Limericks -- what are they?

Limericks are short poems, consisting of 5 lines, that are often somewhat cheeky or silly :) (as I mentioned in my post about my student's poems + the German rap video). Here's another example from Edward Lear:

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.

doodling + drawing from internet photos 

They have the rhyme scheme aabba + the a lines (the last words of which rhyme) generally have 3 emphases (or "feet" in poetry speak... :) ) and the b lines generally have 2 feet. The feet are generally anapestic (see below).

A foot consists of an emphasized syllable and at least 1 unemphasized syllable (or 2 or rarely even 3). I've described 4 of the main types of "feet" (which can be made either by a single word or multiple words) + given examples below:

our Easter Baltic stone 'lamb'

• (unstressed, stressed) believe; the lamb
• (stressed, unstressed) beaver; help me
• "help me" could also be emphasized differently if you wanted to stress that I'm the one that should be helped
• (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) overcome; underfoot; over there
• (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) ornery; woodpecker; basketball; talk to me
• Again, "talk to me" could also have a different emphasis if you wanted to stress that you should talk to me:)

The poetry world has special names for the above patterns as well. The Poetry Foundation provided good poem examples, so here are the terms + examples (listed in the aforementioned order):

• iamb (unstressed, stressed)
• Shakespeare used iambic meter almost exclusively! Think of the following from Romeo + Juliet:
• But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
• It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Not a particularly soft light per se...

• trochee (stressed, unstressed)
• Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is mainly trochaic. 
• anapest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) 
• Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib"
• dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed)
• Lord Alfred Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" 

If we look back at the Edward Lear limerick, here are the stressed syllables -- often in anapestic feet :):

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.

Cute idea from CreationsCeeCee* for pocket doodling -- prepping pages with water color shapes + then doodling on them :)

°°° Care to try writing your own limerick? (Go ahead! It's fun!)

(Here are some I wrote in German a while ago)


* Here's the link to her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57NvS2ZL6zg&t=333s