Thorn in Ethel’s Side, and Other Forgotten Characters

Mayhaps the ash-faced Ethel Wynn, 
Given yogh-urt, instead of her gin,
Spluttered, outraged, and cried,
"This, I cannot abide -
"Ol' Thorn's hand on my bum yet again!"

A sweet-faced Tironian boy bᵹ
Would have liked to be named &
But their fans couldn't say it
So they chose to belay it
Lest all of their ᵹigs should be banned.

Just a little limerick or two for my friend, Mitchell Allen, to help him remember the names of some of the lost letters of the English alphabet.

Today’s Poets

Edward Lear, a nineteenth century British poet, is perhaps the most well-known writer of limericks–though he did not originate this poetic form. As a nod to the genre “literary nonsense,” Lear published a collection of 117 limericks in 1846, entitled A Book of Nonsense¹.

Other famous writers of limericks include Rudyard Kipling, Dr. Seuss (who employed anapestic limerick meter in much of his humorous verse), Algernon Charles Swinburne, W. H. Auden, William Shakespeare, Hilaire Belloc, Lewis Carroll and Anonymous (including the poets of Mother Goose)².

Thanks to Bing for providing a brief reference to some “famous limerick writers.” Hillaire Belloc wrote some of my childhood favorites.

April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.

This month, my goal is to:

1. Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
2. Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.

I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.

Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)