Limericks are fun to write...

(based off the creative writing class)

Especially in middle of the night

Limericks are probably my all-time favorite thing to write. I'm not very good at poetry, but limericks are short, and usually fun as well, so it's kind of hard to mess them up. And if you happen to construct a horrible limerick you can always claim that you meant to do so. Actually, you won't even need to bother claiming. Everyone will just assume that you did it that way on purpose. They will smile and go on their own way with no harsh critique for you! How can you NOT love the limerick?

Nobody is quite certain why they are called 'limericks.' Most assume that it is a reference to the city of Limerick, Ireland, though this has been the cause of some debate. Some people are of the opinion that the two are unrelated, since the nonsense verse that was originally linked with Limerick, Ireland, doesn't match the meter of the limerick.

"The Poet Laureate of the Limerick," more commonly known as Edward Lear, was the first to write a book of limericks, back when they weren't even called 'limericks' yet. His first book was called 'The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women.' He wrote many books, and was even bold enough to call one of them 'A Book of Nonsense' since the limericks were hardly ever about anything serious. All in all, Lear wrote 212 limericks.

I should've gone straight to bed

In Lear's limericks, the final line was often a variation of the first, with the last word exactly the same. This is a bit different from today's limericks, which usually end with a punchline that rhymes with the first sentence. Since Lear's bits of nonsense are excellent examples of classical limericks, but differ greatly from the modern definition, some have taken to renaming them 'Learics.'

Limericks are sometimes sung, but usually only by sailors, drunk people and drunk sailors. After all, drunks automatically mutter nonsense, so why not sing it? Limericks used as humourous drinking songs often have obscene verses, which drunks and sailors seem to relish as well.

But I wrote this instead

My favorite limericks are the ones which entirely reinvent the meaning of a limerick. They drop the usual A-A-B-B-A rhyme scheme and end up with something like this:

There was a young man from Hong Kong
Who found limericks much too long.

or this:

There was a young man of Arnoux
Whose limericks stopped at line two.

Taken a bit further, the limerick turns into:

There was a young man of Verdun ...

which would contradict itself if it were completed.

And then, the real clincher: The limerick about the man from St. Paul, which would be self-contradictory if told at all.

And now I must turn off the light.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)

Well done on a very interesting and humorous essay. For this, you will receive the maximum 50 points. Well done!