Friday, November 14, 2008

Back to Clerihews

There's a very nice one by Jim Cummins:

Derek Walcott
Was known as Pol Pot
To the Ladies
In Hades

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The form is pretty self-explanatory. It was invented and perfected by Edmund Clerihew Bentley:

The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.

What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

W.H. Auden wrote a fair number, some better than others:

Mallarmé
Had too much to say:
He could never quite
Leave the paper white.

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must
But only just.

Lord Byron
Once succumbed to a Siren:
His flesh was weak,
Hers Greek.

1 comment:

zbs said...

The Byron one is fantastic.