What is a limerick and clerihew?

Narrator: Professor Rufus Padoofus is going to recite a limerick for us.

Professor: Hello. Yes, where did I put it…?

Ah yes, it's here in my beard…

There once was a man named Mark,

Who loved to get dressed in the dark,

He wore his hat upside down,

Had shoes like a clown,

And also liked to eat sandwiches.

Narrator: Hang on professor, that last line was all wrong!

Professor: What? I wrote it myself!

Narrator: The first, second and fifth lines have to have the same rhythm and rhyme with each other.

The same goes for the third and fourth lines.

Like this…

An old man was really quite weird,

Cos he always dropped food in his beard,

There was fried egg and jelly,

My dear it was smelly,

When it fell off then everyone cheered.

Professor: Ah. Yes.

Poetry is great but everyone thinks it has to rhyme. Well, I’m here to tell you it does not. In fact, at times, rhyme can get annoying.

It creeps into your head and that can get boring.
It fills me with dread and soon gets me snoring.

Sometimes people rhyme just for the sake of it. They end with poems that make no sense.

I go to the shops with my credit card.
I like lard.
Like William Shakespeare, the bard.

But every now and then you find a rhyme that really works.

There are loads of poems with different rhyming structures.

Like limericks.

There was a young man from Sloane Square,_
who was rapidly losing his hair._
He tried every lotion,
including a witch’s green potion,
which gave him the fur of a bear!

Limericks are often funny. The rhyme builds up a rhythm and an expectation. The audience know what sounds to expect, making them fun to listen to.

You can do other fun things with rhymes too. Like inviting the audience to join in.

In this next bit, all the end words rhyme with bright.

I am a star, I shine bright in the…
I’m never wrong, I’m always…
I soar so high like a bird in…
I never get into trouble, I stay out of a…

You can make up your own rhyming structures.

Or just see how many things you can rhyme with your own name.

Joe.
Slow Joe in the snow.
Slow Joe in the snow finding a floe with nowhere to go.

Another fun form to play with using rhyme is the clerihew.

Cinderella
danced in a ball with a fella,
right until the clock chimed midnight.
Her dress became a mess of rags and gave everyone a fright.

It’s a short poem, often about a famous person or character.

It starts with their name.
The second line rhymes with the name and gives us a bit more information about the person.
The third line gives us another fact and starts a new rhyme.
The fourth line rhymes with the third line and ends the poem.

It’s often funny.

Clerihews can be great ways to revise. You can write them about famous people in history to remember all the stuff they’ve done.

Homophones are words that have the same sounds but different meanings.

Like:
I turn right.
I am always right.
I like to write.

Homophones give you lots of words to play with and to rhyme with.

I was out on a journey on a dark night.
The map was hard to follow because of the dimming light.
I couldn’t see my path - I took a turn to the right.
The darkness got thicker but I knew I was right.
I came out upon a clearing as the moon began to bright.
Sat upon the wet grass, took out my pen and started to write.

Like all poetic devices, rhyme is just another tool to be used when you think it’ll add to a poem.

Not all poems have to rhyme and you don’t have to rhyme all the time.

My mug is empty, now I see: it’s time for me to make a cup of tea.