Techniques of Verse Composition

An occasional series

I compose a lot of verse (often in Latin and ancient Greek, where the rules of quantity - placing syllables with the right duration, long or short - are very strict). Writing good poetry and verse requires, above all, a good ear for words and rhythm. I will be posting a series of articles about composition - in English as well as in ancient languages.

Writing a Limerick

A good ear is needed for light verse no less than for serious poetry. All too often a limerick falls flat because the writer gets the rhyme wrong, fails to hear a missing beat that is essential to the jaunty rhythm, or adds syllables that put the rhythm out.

Take this recent post on Twitter from an Oxford don:

William was no doubt thinking of something more poignant than a limerick, but the words on the poster lend themselves, with a small change or two, to limerick form. But ONLY with a small change or two.

Remember the rhythm required. Three emphases per line as indicated in “There WAS a young LADy from SPAIN…”

So:

Do NOT use this window (dum dum)

It is damaged, awaiting repair.     [so one must remove the ‘and’ after the comma]

We then have to fill in the remainder of the limerick (as one does when translating into Latin and Greek, to create the right syllabic structure). The rhyme at the end of the first line must match repair. My process is to go through the alphabet in my mind, making words that rhyme – Air, Bear, Care, Dare – and quickly evaluating which one might be used. In this case, the phrase ‘take care’ seems to go naturally enough in that place.

Do not use this window. Take care:

It is damaged, awaiting repair.    

The rhyme at the end of the last line should then be thought about. Looking at the image of the window, there is a lot of ‘wear and tear’ visible on the frames.

They’re exhibiting great wear and tear

The two shorter lines preceding have five or six syllables each, with two stresses. What matters is that the stresses are equidistant; the number of syllables in between can vary. We can start:

The panes might fall out…

A rhyme for ‘out’? Perhaps ‘no doubt’, in parenthesis.

Since its frames (there’s no doubt)

This runs into the final line:

Are exhibiting great wear and tear.

The result is not a poetic masterpiece, but a competent limerick. It fulfils, albeit light-heartedly, the tweeter’s suggestion that the image might inspire a poem. It has satisfactory rhyme and rhythm. And it took about 3 minutes to compose.