National Limerick Day 2021

National Limerick Day fell on Wednesday 12th May 2021 this year! In today’s blog, to help celebrate this great day, we are going to be taking a closer look at Limericks, where they come from, how to make one, and how we can use them to help spread positivity & comedy in our lives! So, let’s get to it!

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A Limerick is a short poem, with only five lines, that follows the rhyme scheme of AABBA. They are believed to have originated from Edward Lear’s “A Book of Nonsense”, which was released back in 1846.

Limericks are commonly written in a very comedic & rude style, but can also be done in any other way, depending on what the writer wants. I used to love writing limericks, and used to swap between doing more comedy styled ones, to ones that help spread messages of positivity, all based on what I was feeling when I was writing them!

Limerick Examples

Are you not too sure what a limerick looks like? That’s okay! Here are a few examples of some of the limericks that I have written in the past:

“Tumbling Terry”

There once was a man called Terry,

Who slipped & fell on a berry,

His legs flung up high,

As his balance waved goodbye,

And he carried on his day less merry.

“James Pond”

One day I was walking down the street,

A stranger ran to greet me, eager to meet,

His name, he said, was Bond, James Bond,

But as he continued, he slipped right into a pond,

Leaving him drenched from his head to his feet.

“Life is a Journey”

Life is a journey, each day a new beginning,

The world’s all around us, its axis still spinning,

For the sun’s shining brightly up high in the sky,

Helping us wave all our troubles goodbye,

A fresh reason to smile, for us all to be grinning.

There’s a few of my limericks for you all, I hope you like them! If you want to know how to make a limerick, here are some steps that you can follow:

1. Pick a scenario or a topic to write about
2. Consider how many syllables you would like on each line
3. Write your first line & pick your first rhyme
4. Continue the flow of the poem as you go
5. Before you know it, you’ve got yourself a limerick!

I may do a more in-depth guide for how to write a limerick in the future, but they are a few of the steps that I usually think of to begin with! I used to love writing poems, so it’s really nice to get back into limerick writing!

You can’t beat a good old limerick!

That’s all for today, thank you all for reading! What do you think? Are you a fan of limericks & poetry? Would you like to see more content like this on the blog? Have you got a favourite limerick? What sort of topics would you like to see me write about on the blog?

Be sure to let me know your thought on today’s blog, as well as your answers to the above questions, either in the comments below, or through our Facebook page!

Thank you all for reading & I hope you have a great day!

James Sweeney