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This week: Couplet Poetry Forms Part 2 Edited by: Red Writing Hood <3  
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Couplet Poetry Forms Part 2: Comedy Couplet Forms
This month is a continuation of couplets from last month—only this time these are the Laurel and Hardy of couplets. All the poetry forms featured this month are couplets with a little giggle in them.
Couplets are two lines that work together in a poem, sometimes grouped as stanzas. Occasionally they are unrhymed, but usually they rhyme. There are several poetry forms that are based on couplets.
Clerihew
The Cleriwho? Er, WHAT?!
If you’re asking that question right now, just think David Letterman or Jerry Seinfeld in rhyming couplets. Generally speaking, when creating a Clerihew you want to go for wit, sarcasm, irony and just plain silliness.
The Clerihew is named for the English detective-story author Edmund Clerihew Bentley, its creator. This form can be traced back to 1905 when Bentley published a collection of them titled Biography For Beginners. It’s been said that he began to write them as a way to relax from the rigors of class work at the age of sixteen.
MUST HAVES
--Couplets
--Lines: Four lines of any length (two couplets)
--Rhyme: the couplets must rhyme. Rhyme scheme is aabb.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Topic: Usually about a specific person. When Bentley first created the form they featured a name in the first line and ended it with the witty punch-line/gag but you can ridicule anything, so get don't bogged down by that.
--Number of stanzas: Usually a single four-line stanza.
--Meter: Lines can be any length.
Hudibrastics
This is a poem that is a witty or silly story, written in couplets.
MUST HAVES
--Couplets
--Meter: Iambic tetrameter
--Rhyme. Scheme: aabbccddee, etc.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Line count: as many as you want, but should be an even number since you’re using couplets.
--Number of stanzas
--Topic.
Nashers
This form is name comes from its inventor Ogden Nash. A trademark of the form is how the couplets rhyme. Forcing your rhyme is encouraged to the point of making up words to ensure your couplet rhymes. Now don’t go all Jabberwocky on your entire poem, but do tweak your line endings to make sure they rhyme—just do it in the name of silly fun. “The effect is like a poetic slapstick, as if a line of rambling prose slipped on a banana peel (the word to be rhymed) and fell splat on the floor (the mismatched mate to the first rhyme word)” (Drury, 185).
MUST HAVES
--Couplets
--Rhyme scheme: aa, bb, cc. dd, and so on. The sillier the better (see above).
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Topic: any, just be silly and have fun
--Number of stanzas
--Meter
--Line length: any and usually varies
SOURCE NOTES:
Drury, John. the po.e.try dic.tion.ar.y. 2nd edition. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2006. Print.
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Edited by Ales Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan. 1993.
Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms. 3rd. Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2000.
My article on clerihews: "The Comedic Clerihew" [E].
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Comments on last month's newsletter:
Comment From: monty31802
Comment: I like this N/L because you brought couplets into the poetic game. I have been asked if they would be allowed in the Traditional Poetry Contest. I was surprised that I was asked. Of course my answer was and is yes.
I'm glad to hear it, Monty. I'm happy to help! You run a great contest. Thanks for your feedback! |
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Poetry: July 08, 2015 Issue [#7087]
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