I wrote a haiku one random winter afternoon last year. At the time, I thought I might be occasionally inspired to write another, but it hasn’t happened so far.
I started my desultory poetic career back in 4th grade, when I was in a "special" English class at the public school (Dayton Elementary) I attended before I started at Breck School in 7th grade. (Breck is the private college prep school I attended through 12th grade.) There were three of us in the class: Reid, Derrek (my best friend throughout grade school), and me. We had a year-long project where we each wrote a book of haiku which we then printed and bound by hand. We started our poetry unit with limericks, though. I still remember the first limerick I wrote because it was so horrible. Mrs. Heuwinkle did a very poor job explaining how to write a limerick. Instead of explaining in terms of number of syllables, she taught us to count the number of "beats" in each line. She'd read a limerick while hitting her hand on her desk at each stressed syllable. So, I wrote limericks that had more than the proper number of syllables, but that had (according to me) the right number of these amorphous "beats." I didn't realize until the next year that all limericks had the same number of syllables in each line. I was upset at Mrs. Heuwinkle for not being a better teacher in that regard. She explained syllables fine when she taught us haiku, after all. To this day, I don't understand why she didn't explain the 8-8-5-5-8 concept with limericks.
This was the first limerick (and, I guess, the first poem) that ever I wrote:
I think I figured there was something wrong with the poem, though, because I remember being unhappy with it. The next poem I wrote was my first experience with plagiarism. It wasn't for an assignment, though, so I didn't think it mattered.
My downfall was showing the poem off to the rest of the 4th grade teachers. One of them recognized it. Oops. Thankfully, she didn't tell anyone else. She didn't even really call me on it, saying instead (rather lamely) that the limerick had been written before and wasn't it funny that mine was so similar and this must mean that all the good limericks have already been written. I got the message, though, and I never plagiarized again.
I started my desultory poetic career back in 4th grade, when I was in a "special" English class at the public school (Dayton Elementary) I attended before I started at Breck School in 7th grade. (Breck is the private college prep school I attended through 12th grade.) There were three of us in the class: Reid, Derrek (my best friend throughout grade school), and me. We had a year-long project where we each wrote a book of haiku which we then printed and bound by hand. We started our poetry unit with limericks, though. I still remember the first limerick I wrote because it was so horrible. Mrs. Heuwinkle did a very poor job explaining how to write a limerick. Instead of explaining in terms of number of syllables, she taught us to count the number of "beats" in each line. She'd read a limerick while hitting her hand on her desk at each stressed syllable. So, I wrote limericks that had more than the proper number of syllables, but that had (according to me) the right number of these amorphous "beats." I didn't realize until the next year that all limericks had the same number of syllables in each line. I was upset at Mrs. Heuwinkle for not being a better teacher in that regard. She explained syllables fine when she taught us haiku, after all. To this day, I don't understand why she didn't explain the 8-8-5-5-8 concept with limericks.
This was the first limerick (and, I guess, the first poem) that ever I wrote:
A chicken laid four eggs to hatch.I remember writing this poem in my room and taking it to my parents who were watching television in the room that was then the television room but eventually became Missy's room. (When I was in fourth grade, oh, so long ago, my sisters Missy and Tina shared a room.) Mom read it and gave me an awkward, "That's very nice, honey," knowing full well, I am quite certain, that it is a God-awful limerick. Dad read it and was impressed at how clever I was, assuming that I was referring to a refrigerator as the "den with a latch" and that the poor chicken who couldn't lay eggs had been slaughtered, which was implied by the chicken's silence. I looked back at him blankly as he was praising my cleverness, because the fourth and fifth lines were written only because "spoke" and "latch" rhymed properly with the words I had used earlier in the poem. I intended the chicken's not speaking to imply that the chicken was upset, not that it had been killed. And I had no picture in my mind of what the hell the "den with a latch" would be. I had struggled so hard on the first four lines that I wanted to end the damn thing, so I wrote down the first thing that I could fit into the last line.
The farmer took them so she laid a new batch.
The other four broke.
Since then she hasn't spoke.
And now she's in a den with a latch.
I think I figured there was something wrong with the poem, though, because I remember being unhappy with it. The next poem I wrote was my first experience with plagiarism. It wasn't for an assignment, though, so I didn't think it mattered.
There once was a corpulent carpI assuaged my guilt of plagiarism by changing "corpulent" to "very wise." (I didn't know what "corpulent" meant, anyway.) I showed it to Mrs. Heuwinkle after class one day, and she showered me with effusive praise, telling me how wonderful it was and how it was the best limerick I'd yet written because it had all the right "beats." (No kidding!)
Who wanted to play on a harp.
But to his chagrin,
So short was his fin,
He couldn't reach up to C sharp!
My downfall was showing the poem off to the rest of the 4th grade teachers. One of them recognized it. Oops. Thankfully, she didn't tell anyone else. She didn't even really call me on it, saying instead (rather lamely) that the limerick had been written before and wasn't it funny that mine was so similar and this must mean that all the good limericks have already been written. I got the message, though, and I never plagiarized again.
Mrs. Heuwinkle (what a name!) wasn't entirely off in teaching limericks by beats rather than syllables. Some limericks have nine syllables in their long lines. Think for example, of the canonical dirty limerick about a well-endowed Massachusetts lad. (The version on wikipedia even has *ten* syllables in the last line.)
ReplyDeleteIn general, your 8-8-5-5-8 paradigm can be expanded by adding a final unaccented syllable to any line (which, for the sake of the rhyme scheme must be reflected in all corresponding lines). You also sometimes hear an extra unaccented syllable at the beginning or in the middle of a line (again, usually proliferated through all corresponding lines in the rhyme scheme). These extra syllables are always pronounced more quickly, like changing an upbeat quarter-note to two eighth-notes. If you have too many of these, or if the pattern doesn't proliferate through corresponding lines (both issues in your chicken limerick), the scansion sounds very awkward.
Indeed, you could model the entire rhythmic structure of a limerick by thinking about performing it in 3/4 time. All measures have an upbeat (usually a quarter, sometimes two eighths). Long lines can end on the downbeat of the third measure, or can extend to beat two. They are followed by a measure of rest. Short lines also can end on the downbeat of their second measures, or extend to beat two. There is no measure of rest between them. The complete limerick takes 15 measures (16 if you count a full measure of rest after the last line).
Music nerd power!
I must also say I'm impressed that you apparently *did* know the meaning of "chagrin" in fourth grade :)
Your first limerick was way clever! I agree with your father about that. It didn't occur to me that the chicken had been slaughtered and was in the fridge, but I thought it was a brilliant anthromorphic study of human emotion. Very sophisticated for a 4th grader, I would say.
ReplyDeleteI guess I never thought so carefully about the gentleman from Nantucket, but I now that limerick lines can indeed be 9 or 10 syllables. The point about being 16 bars in 3-4 time is very interesting. I guess I should tone down my anti-Heuwinkle rhetoric a bit, but I still think she should have been talking some about syllables. Limericks should be in 3-4 time, but only quarter notes are allowed. My chicken limerick requires several eigth-note rhythms to fit into the proper 16 bars.
ReplyDelete