Limericks

What’s interesting about limericks is the specific form that all of them have to follow. Limericks follow a rigid structure of being five lines long and following an AABBA rhyme scheme. Limericks are often written to be funny or obscene. Limericks are fun to read because of the short length of the poem and the rhyming. The fixed structure of limericks is similar to the fixed structure in villanelles, though villanelles are much longer. One limerick I found was called “There was an Old Man with a Beard” by Edward Lear:

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, “It is just as I feared!

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!

The third and fourth lines are shorter than the other three, which makes the poem read faster and gives it more of a musical rhythm as it's being read.