This week Big Tent Poetry prompts us to cheer ourselves up and cure whatever’s ailing us by writing poetry. I’m no cheerier than before, but at least I did write a relevant limerick … sort of:
Blue Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Our topic today feels perverse:
It’s curing our blues with some verse.
If I write something happy
It’s sure to be crappy.
And bad limericks make me feel worse.
This week Writers Island prompts us to use the word beguile in a poem. So here’s my Beguiling Limerick:
Beguiling Verse
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A gal who was very beguiling
Was always so charmingly smiling,
That she duped many men
Yet again and again.
Now they’re lined up in court for a filing.
St. Valentine’s Day,
Okay for loving couples.
Much sweeter for stores.
(My Valentine’s Day limerick and another haiku are here. And here’s my Valiant Guys Guide To Valentines Day humor column.)
The Problem With The Media Explained
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The journos compete in a race
To file columns and fill blogging space.
So nonsense abounds
In ill-informed mounds
Of opinions and factoids off base.
Ode To AOL’s Huffington Post Acquisition
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The Huffington Post has been bought.
In AOL’s lair it’s been caught.
Will its death there be quick,
Or will some readers stick?
And will payment for scribes remain naught?
Here’s the New York Times on the acquisition and Huffington’s announcement.
Once again, it’s Limerick-Off time. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same first line. Then you post your limerick here and, if you’re a Facebook user, on Facebook too.
So I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A man who reported the news…
Here’s mine:
Newsy Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A man who reported the news
Had some very odd habits and views.
He’d rant and he’d rave
And refuse to behave.
And when caught in a lie, he blamed booze.
Please feel free to write your own limerick using the same first line and post it in my comments. And if you’re on Facebook, I hope you’ll join my friends in that same activity in my Facebook Limerick-Off post.
To receive an email alert whenever I post a new Limerick-Off, please send me an email requesting the alerts. You’ll find my email address on the upper right sidebar, in the “Author” section just below my Limerick-Offs button. Thanks!
Help! I can’t stop writing Super Bowl limericks! After reading about the disastrous Dallas weather leading up to tomorrow’s Super Bowl game, I felt compelled to write this limerick. (Full disclosure: Roughly a zillion years ago I lived in Dallas, played oboe in the Dallas Symphony, and taught oboe at SMU.)
Yet Another 2011 Super Bowl Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A friend of ours living in Dallas
Likes to brag that his city’s a palace,
Taunting “Never get snow!”
Then it snowed (don’t you know)
On the game. I won’t laugh cuz it’s callous.
If you read my limerick about the NFL playoffs, you probably assume I won’t be watching tomorrow’s Super Bowl game in snow-challenged Dallas. And you’d be right:
Not Souped Up By The Super Bowl (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
There are those who find football a gas.
But when football’s on, I take a pass.
I treat baseball the same.
Just don’t like any game
That has balls. I would rather mow grass.
Sometimes I’m very disobedient when it comes to poetry prompts. For instance, Haiku Heights asks us to use the word splendor in … surprise, surprise … haiku. So what do I do? I use it in a limerick, instead.
Not So Splendid Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I wonder what constitutes splendor
And if views of it vary by gender.
Some see it in people
Or art or a steeple.
And others in green legal tender.
This week Big Tent Poetry provides a bunch of word prompts, urging us to use one or more in our poems. I used three of them in my haiku (remote, function, handle) and one in a limerick (remote.)
First, my limerick:
I’m tempted to hide the remote
From my spouse in a closet or coat,
Cuz he flicks ev’ry station
In rapid rotation.
Missing show after show gets my goat.
*****
And now my haiku:
Dysfunctional spouse
Wields remote ADD-style.
Wife can’t handle it.
One of my limerick-writing pals has challenged me to hold a Double-Dactyl-Off. My initial response was “What the hell’s a double dactyl?”
So I Googled it, read the rules, and attempted to write a couple of them myself. I’ll try to summarize the rules here and will provide links to some good resources and samples. (Don’t worry if you find the rules confusing. Once you read a couple of examples, they make more sense.)
1) A double dactyl is a two stanza (eight line) humorous poem consisting mostly of dactyls. What’s a dactyl? A dactyl has three syllables, one stressed followed by two unstressed (/ _ _ ).
2) Line 1 is a nonsense phrase consisting of two dactyls (like Higgeldy Piggeldy or Dickery Dockery or Flippity Flappity.)
3) Line 2 is the name of a famous person (usually historic) but must be a double dactyl (like Emily Dickinson or Joseph DiMaggio or Hans Christian Andersen.)
4) Lines 4 and 8 must rhyme.
5) Somewhere in the second stanza there’s is a double dactyl formed by a single word (like megalomaniac or gubernatorial or idiosyncrasy.)
Here’s the form which I borrowed from Miss Rumphius.
1 – double dactyl nonsense phrase (like Higgeldy Piggeldy)
2 – double dactyl of a person’s name
3 – double dactyl
4 – one dactyl plus a stressed syllable (/ _ _ / )
5 – double dactyl
6 – double dactyl
7 – double dactyl
8 – one dactyl plus a stressed syllable (/ _ _ / )
(Wikipedia provides the rules and examples.)
Here are my first two attempts. (I invite you to post your own in my comments.)
Higgledy Piggledy
Ludwig van Beethoven
Wrote the Eroica,
Sadly went deaf.
Incontrovertibly
Gifted and masterful.
Some say he’s better than
Brahms. Need a ref.
*****
Rickety Rackety
David A. Paterson
Got to be gov cuz boss
Spitzer resigned.
Patterson governed us
Counter-productively.
Sure’s been a while since a
Governor’s shined.
I’m looking forward to your double dactyls. Have fun! And if you’re on Facebook, please post your double dactyls here on Facebook too.
Mad Kane (Madeleine Begun Kane) is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." She won the Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor and enjoys writing limericks, song parodies, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
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