Clerihew

A Clerihew (or clerihew) is a very specific kind of short humorous verse, typically with the following properties:

• It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; but it is hardly ever satirical, abusive or obscene
• It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect)
• The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of a well-known person's name.

The form was invented by and is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley; the first use of the word in print was in 1928.

Examples

The first ever Clerihew:

Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Worked swiftly if not gently,

Tracking murderers down by a hidden clew

In whodunit and clerihew.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Mused, when he ought to have studied intently;

It was this muse

That inspired clerihews.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

was evidently

a man

who could not get his verses to scan

Carl Gustav Jung

was very well hung,

a fact which annoyed

Sigmund Freud.

Sir Karl Popper

Perpetrated a whopper

When he boasted to the world that he and he alone

Had toppled Rudolf Carnap from his Vienna Circle throne.

(by Armand T. Ringer)

Sir Christopher Wren

Said, "I am going to dine with some men.

If anybody calls,

Say I am designing St Paul's."

John Stuart Mill,

By a mighty effort of will,

Overcame his natural bonhomie

And wrote 'Principles of Political Economy'.

Daniel Defoe

Lived a long time ago

He had nothing to do so

He wrote Robinson Crusoe

Johann Sebastian Bach

was fond of saying, "Ach!"

And instead of saying "Guten Morgen"

He played the Toccata and Fugue on the organ!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Lived upon venison;

Not cheap, I fear,

Because venison's dear.

(credited to Louis Untermeyer)

George the Third

Ought never to have occurred.

One can only wonder

At so grotesque a blunder.

Paula Reginer

Will have quite a career

One can attest

Via the size of her chest.

(Credited to Paul D. Joachim)

What I like about Clive

Is that he is no longer alive.

There is much to be said

For being dead.

Charles Anthony Richard Hoare

His books are always such a bore.

Especially the most recent of his,

Communicating Sequential Processes.

Google Reader's

built with electrons and leptons, meters and liters.

We're off dealing with those particles

so we can bring you your articles.

(maintenance page seen on http://www.google.com/reader/view/)

Clerihews are occasionally not about a particular person, as in this example by Bentley:

The Art of Biography

Is different from Geography.

Geography is about Maps,

But Biography is about Chaps.

This is really a meta-Clerihew, as Clerihews are mini biographies.

Ted Hughes

Never wrote clerihews,

It was his fate

To become Poet Laureate.

External links

• How to write a Clerihew poem