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The Odd Poetic Clerihew Style

A humorous reflection on the light verse quatrain poetic form invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley.

According to Britannica, a “clerihew” is “a light verse quatrain in the lines usually of varying length, rhyming aabb, and usually dealing with a person named in the initial rhyme”. It was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley in the early 1900’s and is intended to be humorous through its clumsiness.

I stumbled on the form while looking at poetic forms like the haiku. So, of course, I had to write one. Here is my literary masterpiece for your enjoyment:

Clerihew

By Rhodes Davis

Clerihew
Long writing he eschewed.
To keep from being a bore,
He limited poetic lines to four.