Poetry Month: Clerihew

The theme for my poems this week was inspired by Jolea's Facebook status, which was that "I dream of a better tomorrow... where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives."

"Not the Zac Braff One"

Chicken Little,
full of spittle,
was endlessly bawling
"the sky is falling!"

Clerihew

A Clerihew is a comic verse consisting of two couplets and a specific rhyming scheme, aabb invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) at the age of 16. The poem is about/deals with a person/character within the first rhyme. In most cases, the first line names a person, and the second line ends with something that rhymes with the name of the person.

One of the most remembered Clerihew from Bentley's collection is:

    Sir Humphrey Davy
    Abominated gravy.
    He lived in the odium
    Of having discovered sodium.

Example #1

Garfield the cat
On his rear he sat.
Eating lasagna galore
All about the decor.

Copyright © 2000 James & Marie Summers

Example #2

The Road Runner
always almost a goner;
when attacked in manner dread,
Wile E. suffers intended fate instead ....
 
Copyright © 2004 Alan McAlpine Douglas
 

Example #3

Star Trek's frowning Klingon Worf 
challenges a squeamish metamorph 
to eating a wormlike gagh dinner;
Worf of course was the winner!
 
Copyright © 2004 Diana Dalton
 

Example #4

Corporal Klinger,
M.A.S.H.'s best ringer
in dress, heels and sneer,
won "Kook of the Year."
 
Copyright © 2004 James Dean Chase