Rainbows, pots of gold, leprechauns and limericks--it's all in good fun this St. Patrick's Day. Here are a few tips for writing the the perfect St. Patrick's Day poem from Poetry4Kids:
Limericks are one of the
most fun and well-known poetic forms. No one knows for sure where the name
“limerick” comes from, but most people assume it is related to the county of
Limerick, in Ireland. The reason limericks are so much fun is because they
are short, rhyming, funny, and have a bouncy rhythm that makes them easy to
memorize. In this lesson, I’ll show you how you can write your own limericks in
just a few easy steps.
THE RULES OF LIMERICKS
Limericks, like all
poetic forms, have a set of rules that you need to follow. The rules for a
limerick are fairly simple:
- They are five lines long.
- Lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme with one another.
- Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other.
- They have a distinctive rhythm.
- They are usually funny.
The rhyme scheme of a limerick is known as
“AABBA.” This is because the last words in lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme. Those are
the “A’s” in the rhyme scheme. The “B’s” are the last words of lines 3 and 4.
Let me give you an example:
There was a young fellow
named Hall
Who fell in the spring in the fall.
‘Twould have been a sad thing
Had he died in the spring,
But he didn’t—he died in the fall.
– Anonymous
Notice that the words,
“Hall,” “fall,” and “fall” all rhyme. Those are the “A” words in the “AABBA”
rhyme scheme. Also notice that “thing” and “spring” rhyme. Those are the “B”
words in the rhyme scheme.
LIMERICK RHYTHM
Now let’s take a look at
the rhythm of the limerick. It goes by the complicated name “anapaestic,” but
you don’t need to worry about that. What I want you to notice when you read or
recite a limerick is that the first two lines and the last line have three
“beats” in them, while the third and fourth lines have two “beats.” In other
words, the rhythm of a limerick looks like this:
da DUM da da DUM da da
DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
The rhythm doesn’t have
to exactly match this, but it needs to be close enough that it sounds
the same when you read it. For example, using the limerick above about the
fellow from Hall, if we emphasize the beats, it reads like this:
There WAS a young FELLow
named HALL
Who FELL in the SPRING in the FALL.
'Twould have BEEN a sad THING
Had he DIED in the SPRING,
But he DIDn’t—he DIED in the FALL.
YOUR TURN
Now it’s your turn to
see if you can write a limerick of your own. Remember to follow these steps:
- Choose the name of a person or place and write the first line.
- Look in a rhyming dictionary for words that rhyme with your person or place name.
- Write line 2 and 5 to rhyme with the first line.
- Now write lines 3 and 4 with a different rhyme.
- When you are done writing, read your limerick out loud to see if it has the right rhythm; three “beats” on lines 1, 2, and 5, and two “beats” on lines 3 and 4, as shown above. If not, see if you can rewrite some words to get the rhythm right.
Have fun writing your limerick!
Image credit: YouTube
Contributed by Danyelle, Fairmont Private Schools
