LIMERICK ABUSE

I always use limericks to teach meter because most of my students can clearly hear the stressed syllables in limericks – once they begin to be able to identify which syllables are stressed and unstressed, it’s much easier for them to apply those skills to other types of meter – yesterday we wrote limericks as a practice exercise – I always do a bunch of extemporaneous examples in class to help them and to show them that it is actually very easy – these are some of my favorites from yesterday (as you may guess they are inspired by students):

I once knew a fellow named Saul
Who, sadly, was not very tall
But he had lots of hair
That would give you a scare
If you saw him about in the hall.

I once had a student named Hadley
Who always behaved very badly
She was so bad one day
That I sent her away
And the class all responded quite gladly.

Maggie’s a student I know.
Every day she puts on a show:
She might roll on the floor
Or perhaps slam the door
And make all her classmates say, “Whoa!”

So there once was a student named Tom,
And he wanted to go to the prom,
But he waited too late
to find a good date
And he ended up taking his mom.

There once was a redhead named Jim,
Who never went in for a trim,
His hair grew so large
It resembled a barge
So he looked like a her not a him.