Get Your Limerick ON! - Debbie Guzzi's Blog

My new Contest is for adults, we will all be working on "spit shining" our Limerick form. Please feel free to use animals, as well as, people in your limericks or even meat eating plants. LOL There once was a Venus Flytrap....

The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of 5 lines, with the first, second and fifth usually rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The defining "foot" of a limerick's meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but limericks can also be considered amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).

There once was a man from Nantucket

Within the genre, ordinary speech stress is often distorted in the first line, and may be regarded as a feature of the form: "There was a young man from the coast;" "There once was a girl from Detroit…" The use of geographical names, especially exotic ones, is also common. The most prized limericks incorporate a kind of twist, which may be revealed in the final line or lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both. Many limericks show some form of internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or some element of word play.

Anyone have any questions? Please ask here OR in my soup mail, when in doubt please ask!