Monday, April 27, 2015

Do you Clerihew? #NationalPoetryMonth

Yes, I watch The Voice. Silly as it is, I enjoy it and look forward to family commentary while cuddling on the couch eating popcorn. We make it an event, and I feel this event calls for a whimsical poem or two. How about some Clerihew?*


Blake Shelton
Made Sisaundra sing Elton.
He's never heard "America" by Simon and Garfunkel
So I guess he doesn't have all of the oldies in his arsenal.


Old farts like me enjoy this.
Look at that Zen Pharrell!
He coaches his singers so well.
Encouraging each like they're his children
even though they're probably too young to win.


Christina Aguilera
can't hide behind that mascara
she's got golden pipes
and can sing way above her haters' snipes.


Adam Levine
looks lean
when standing on his red chair
raising his tattoos in the air.


These Clerihews are hard to stop writing. They're absurdly easy. So here's two more about musicians, just for the heck of it.

Kanye West
puts his colleagues to the test
when he opens his trap—
oh, snap!

Brittany Howard
ain't no coward
she don't wanna fight no more**
'cuz she's top of her game—no need to keep score.



*Clerihews are silly, four-line biographical poems invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a novelist, crime writer, humorist, and Oxford old boy's club member. His work was popular at the turn of the last century.
The first line of a Clerihew contains the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light. The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and meter are irregular.  According to Wikipedia, "subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English languages." Bentley seemed to think the more awkward the forced rhyme, the funnier. If you'd like to dig a bit deeper into this uniquely British form, there's a great site I recommend checking out here.

**That's a musical reference to my latest earworm by the Alabama Shakes. Click on the video below and enjoy catching it.


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