Laugh Lines – Comedy Genre Poetry Forms – PART 1 – Nutty Nonsense

Whether you’ve got them, in denial about them, or way too young to care about them, I’m not talking about those crinkly crow’s feet that grow around your eyes, or the grooves around your mouth. While laughter may be the cause of those lines, we really will be talking about various poetry forms that start snickers: those that fall into the comedy genre.

The forms I will talk about first are sometimes equated with nonsense poetry. In fact, many are used when creating poetry for children. While creating depth is essential in all poetry, it must go to the back of the line and allow meter, music, and rhythm be at the head of the class for these poetry forms.

Macaronic Verse

The Italian born Macaronic Verse is a poem “consisting of a mixture of languages” (Quinion). This poetry form is firmly in the comedy genre, but poetic license means you can try to deviate from traditional witty jesting.

BRIEF HISTORY

This type of poetry has been around for over five hundred years, and the name was the invention of Teofilo Folengo. “The form was first written by Tisi degli Odassi” one hundred years before Folengo created the name for it (Macaronic Poetic Form).

MUST HAVES

*Two languages – or one of the variations listed below.
*Comedy Genre – while I’ve seen nothing that says it must, this form seems to fit into comedy best.

COULD HAVES or What’s The Poet’s Choice In All This?

*Rhyme or not.
*Use of meter, and what type of meter, if used – with this type of poetry the rhythm and rhyme tend to be important elements.
*Length, although to carry on to considerable length, might strain your reader, depending on the amount of the second language used.

OF NOTE

Variations:

What if you don’t know two languages, and don’t have time to do the research necessary to create something with another language? You could try some of the suggestions in The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett. He proposes using “different kinds of one language, such as the language of a textbook mixed with the language of people talking, or what your friends say mixed with what your parents say, or phrases from the newspaper intermingled with your own thoughts about love” (Padgett 109).

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Nonsense Verse

Defined in Merriam Webster, Nonsense Verse is “humorous or whimsical verse that features absurd characters and actions and often contains evocative but meaningless [made up] words” (Entry: Nonsense Verse). Most of you will have read The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (I think I read it in Middle School). If you haven’t I suggest you look into reading it soon. My son hates reading *gasp*, but loves quoting that poem.

MUST HAVES

*Made up words (often silly) included in the poem, how many (it can be a few to the entire poem), and where are up to you, or the variation described below.
*Comedy Genre – while I’ve seen nothing that says it must, because of the silly words, this form seems to fit into comedy best.

COULD HAVES or What’s The Poet’s Choice In All This?

*How many and where you put your made up words.
*Rhyme or not.
*Use of meter, and what type of meter, if used – just like with the Macaronic Verse, with this type of poetry the rhythm and rhyme tend to be important elements.
*Length, although to carry on to considerable length, might strain your reader, depending on the amount of the second language used.

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Limericks

If I said, “There was a young lady from” – how many of you would yell out “Nantucket” (or groan) before I said it? Limericks are a well known nonsense poetry form. They can range from innocent fun to raunchy and racy, and it would be a challenge to create anything but comedy with this form.

BRIEF HISTORY

While they weren’t called limericks at the time, “variants of this form dating as far back as the fourteenth century are found in English nursery rhymes and animal-warning poems” (Rusche). Eventually, they morphed into a bawdy bar game.

About two hundred years ago, an artist named Edward Lear “produced A Book of Nonsense, which is full of limericks and illustrations, for the Earl [of Derby's] grandchildren in 1846″ (Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense).

Here is an example of one of Edward Lear’s limericks:

There was an Old Man who supposed,
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large rats,
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile old gentleman dozed.

Source: http://www.poetry-online.org/limericks.htm

MUST HAVES

*Anapest meter (if you have trouble with meter, try: 8, 8, 5, 5, 8 syllables)
*AABBA rhyme scheme

COULD HAVES or What’s The Poet’s Choice In All This?

*While many limericks begin with: “There was or there once was,” it is not required to do so.
*Again, it doesn’t need to be in the comedy genre, but I can’t imagine one that was not. Stick with the funny stuff, or consider it a challenge to create one that isn’t.

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ARTICLE SOURCE NOTES:

“Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense: There Once Was….” EDSITEment. 29 Apr 2008 .

“Entry: Nonsense Verse.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. 28 Apr 2008.

Padgett, Ron. The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms. 2nd. NY: T & W Books, 2000.

“Macaronic Poetic Form” Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Encyclop