As pen and paper were met

This poem was made for the Gazette

So bad was the verse

The editor did curse

And hasn't stopped swearing yet

TO OUR READERS: We asked some of our Gazette colleagues to help us launch our contest with a limerick of their own. The one above is from applications analyst Sarah Noel.

William Butler Yeats. T.S. Eliot. Sylvia Plath.

These names do not belong in a story about limericks.

Limericks are about fun, about entertainment, about girls from Nantucket. Masquerading as poetry, limericks tell a tale, no-holds-barred and often bawdy.

Not surprisingly, they come with a questionable past.

Forms of the five-line jingles were spouted, sputtered and sung in working-class British pubs centuries ago. Relatively easy to write and fun to sing while tipsy, the perverse verse was often repeated by beggars and drunks over the years.

Another version traces the poem’s name to the tavern chorus “Will you come up to Limerick?” referring to the Irish town of Limerick.

It wasn’t until the mid-1840s that limericks became popular, thanks to Edward Lear’s “The Book of Nonsense,” which paired the poems with customary comical illustrations.

What do true literary types think of them?

“Most get a kick out of limericks,” said Tom Napierkowski, English professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “It’s entertainment. It puts students at ease.”

Other forms of poetry can be intimidating, he said, recalling a student who said, “I didn’t understand it, so it must be good.” There is an educational element: Limericks are a good way of teaching meter, he said. “It has a rigid form with a certain rhyme scheme.” But we don’t read them for their literary benefits. “The first and foremost purpose is humor,” he said. Which basically excludes Sylvia Plath.

YOU’VE GOT RHYTHM

Writing a limerick in seven easy steps

TIP 1:

- Make it a five-line verse.

- Follow the rhyme scheme a-ab-b-a.

- The stressed syllables should be consistent.

For example: There ONCE was a PAST-or named ED-dy Who LIKED to mix SCRIPT-ure with BED-dy. He’d SIP on some wine And READ until 9 ’Til FIN’ly for SLEEP he was READ-y.

TIP 2:

- It’s an audio thing. Read the lines aloud.

TIP 3:

- You’ll never get away with writing a limerick that does not rhyme. . . but you can get away with a nearrhyme or slant rhyme.

TIP 4:

- Though anything goes, the opening line of a classic limerick identifies a character, location or object.

Example: “There once was a hiker named Pike” or “A woman with mounds like the Rockies.”

TIP 5:

- No great talent is necessary, but a good limerick must be clever. Make use of double-entendre, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, idioms, puns and other figurative devices.

TIP 6:

- End with a bang.

TIP 7:

- Remember, no one has ever gotten rich from writing limericks — but a lucky few have gotten into the movies for free.

You long for a movie and know it

So why not try being a poet?

Make it droll, make it bawdy

Just don’t get toooo naughty

You’re creative so why not just show it?

Poetry skills not necessary to join Gazette contest

To those who say limericks are cheesy,

The verse of the drunk and the sleazy . . .

We agree!

We like limericks so much, in fact, we want to read more of them. So we’re asking limerickologists (budding and otherwise) to enter The Gazette limerick contest.

E-mail your original limericks to andrea.brown@gazette.com, or send them to Andrea Brown, P.O. Box 1779, Colorado Springs 80901. Include your full name and a contact phone number. Deadline is Aug. 7. We’ll publish a few on the next few Tuesdays in the Life section, and run the winners Aug. 21.

A panel of nonpoets, including waiters and servers from Jack Quinn Irish Ale House & Pub, will pick three winners.

First prize will win a family membership to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Second place will win eight movie tickets, and third place will win four movie tickets.