What is JacketFlap

  • JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans.
    Join now (it's free).

Sort Blog Posts

Sort Posts by:

  • in
    from   

Suggest a Blog

Enter a Blog's Feed URL below and click Submit:

Most Commented Posts

In the past 7 days

Recent Posts

(tagged with 'forms')

Recent Comments

Recently Viewed

JacketFlap Sponsors

Spread the word about books.
Put this Widget on your blog!
  • Powered by JacketFlap.com

Are you a book Publisher?
Learn about Widgets now!

Advertise on JacketFlap

MyJacketFlap Blogs

  • Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.

Blog Posts by Tag

In the past 7 days

Blog Posts by Date

Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: forms, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 2 of 2
1. Oneliners

No, not that kind! These are simply amazing.

Sharpie Oneliner-In Context by Field Music
john jay ma! ra! thon!
Daily Motion

Want to try it out yourself. Go here.

Thanks Art, Words, Life which led me to Drawn, which led me to the above!

0 Comments on Oneliners as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
2. A word about limericks

And I sure hope my daughter's sixth-grade English teacher is reading this. A limerick, unlike some other forms of verse, does not have a restricted syllable count. It's got a stressed beat pattern.

Limericks are five-line poems, almost always humorous, and quite frequently bawdy. Edward Lear is sometimes credited with inventing them, but they existed a good 100 years before his birth in published form.

They are a song-based poem, with common wisdom being that they came from a tavern song (hence the humor and bawdiness references). If you're a musical type (and I'm not just talking to here), you will understand when I tell you that limericks are recited in 6/8 time, and begin on a pickup to the first "measure."

I will write it out for you as best I can -- ta is a pickup (the 6th beat of a 6-beat measure). Capitalized Da is a stressed syllable, and lowercase da is an unstressed syllable of the poem's text. The numbers in parenthesis are actually the count of the rest, when you've paused at the end of the line.

ta Da da da Da da da Da (2-3-4-5-)
ta Da da da Da da da Da (2-3-4-5-)
ta Da da da Da (2-)
ta Da da da Da (2-)
ta Da da da Da da da Da

They often begin "There once was . . . ", but not always. They are almost always in rhyme, as follows: AABBA (all three long lines rhyme, and the two short lines rhyme with one another).

Sometimes, the last stressed beat has syllables after it -- they cut into the "rest" time, but the beat goes on just the same.

Examples:

A wonderful bird is the Pelican,
His bill can hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.
&emsp &emsp by Dixon Lanier Merritt

or, for a mildly bawdy one:

There was a young lady from Lynn,
Who thought that to love was a sin;
But when she was tight,
She thought it quite right,
So everyone filled her with gin.

Again, there's no ACTUAL syllabic requirement, although truly, 10 is the most you can fit in a long line, and seven is the most for the short lines. (Minimums are pretty much 8 and 5.)

Then why, I ask you, did my daughter's teacher send home a sheet telling them they had to count syllables in order to write limericks, with no regard for the stressed meter of the poem? *Heavy sigh*

And I offered to come in and do a poetry presentation if she wanted, but they're pressed for time and jamming poetry into 5 days at the end of the school year. Not that that's kept her from requiring the kids to write an entire book of poetry using her incorrect patterns. (You should see what she said a cinquain was -- it was also all wrong, because she told them it was a certain number of words per line, when the key to a cinquain is syllables Blurgh.)

0 Comments on A word about limericks as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment