Funny Poem a Day – Limerick, by Colin West

As you can see, Lola is extremely good at making paper boats, and origami in general. VERY unlike the hero of Colin West‘s poem, below… Colin is a great favourite here on Poetry roundabout, thank you Colin!

Limerick

There once was a fellow from Tonga

Who should have made very much stronga

His newspaper boat

Which didn’t quite float,

And that’s why this rhyme isn’t longa.

© Colin West

Joke:

How does the ocean say hello?

¡sǝʌɐʍ ʇI

Do you want to write a limerick? Limericks are usually funny. The humour often comes from the rhyme.

Limericks are always five lines long.

Lines 1, 2 and 5 have the same rhyme, and are longer than lines 3 and 4.

Lines 1, 2 and 5 have a rhythm that goes : duh DUM duh duh DUM duh duh DUM

Lines 3 and 4 rhyme have a different rhyme.

Lines 3 and 4 also have a different rhythm: duh DUM duh duh DUM

This is the rhythm of the limerick written out:

duh DUM duh duh DUM duh duh DUM

duh DUM duh duh DUM

duh DUM duh duh DUM duh duh DUM

See if you can write one! They are great fun. Here is another one:

Ducks’ quacks all sound the same. How do they tell whether it is their quack or not if they are all quacking at the same time?

Ducks quack as they’re to-ing and fro-ing,

So they must have some way of knowing,

if a quack is the quack

of a friend quacking back

or their own quack coming and going.

Author: Liz Brownlee

Award-Wining Children's Poet, Author, Wildlife and Climate enthusiast, NPD Ambassador, blogger and owner of Lola the retired alert dog and Paddy the alert dog in training. Books include CLiPPA shortlisted Being Me, Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings, Editor of Shaping the World, Author of Be the Change, Apes to Zebras, The Same Inside, Reaching the Stars and Animal Magic. I visit schools, libraries, literary festivals via Zoom and give lessons on writing poetry for children. http://www.poetryroundabout.com http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com @LizBrownlee@zirk.us @Lizpoet View All Posts