There once was an eloquent Slammer
With never a metrical stammer.
Her talents diverse,
She submitted a verse
That inspired a great deal of clamor.

This poem was in limerick form,
A piece rather out of the norm.
Just five lines of rhyme,
But it kept perfect time –
A difficult feat to perform!

And the Slam Master thought, How unfair
That the limerick is so very rare.
But if poets knew more
Of the limerick’s lore,
They might be more likely to care.

So the Slam Master went on a mission
To trace the old limerick tradition.
She searched high and low,
And she soon came to know
Of this poem’s historic position.

The limerick was recognized late
And not till 1898
Did the name of this poem
Find a permanent home
In a dictionary of some weight.

But the limerick goes back before then,
A tradition in Ireland when
The Maigue Poets wrote
In this form to promote
A more lighthearted poetry trend.

And earlier, even, in Britain,
The Saxons as well were quite smitten
With this type of verse –
Brief and funny and terse –
And so the first limericks were written.

The verse has endured through the ages
And filled many hundreds of pages.
Great poets like Lear
Have advanced its career,
And today the old form still engages.

So here is a rallying call
To old bards and new poets, all:
Please don’t shun the limerick
As simply a gimmick,
Or snub it for being so small.

Instead, try some verse in this vein,
And let foolery have full rein,
For the limerick packs levity –
Bolstered by brevity –
That no epic poem could contain!

Cheers,

Ann Pedtke
Slam Master