How to Write a Limerick

How to write a limerick? This page really gets to the heart of that question.

Mules

The constriction of verse is for fools
If you know them well, go break the rules!
For the limerick's sway
Is because it is play
And those folks who say diff'rent are mules.

Residuum

If you've written a thousand of these
You may use an iamb if you please
At the start of the line
And I also opine
A residuum's fine in a squeeze

Purists

Pedant purists at some sites contend
That a strict anapest is closed-end
But the limericks aim
And its best claim to fame
Is the fun that we get in the end.

The Plastic Limerick

The sublime limerick is for fun
We are none of us good old John Donne
For this verse is gymnastic
Its bending is plastic
Precision can be overdone.

No Content

Now a rhyme with no content's a "snap."
Then be strict with your anapest scrap
But if you must convey
Some real substance, I say,
Read Commedia, then, raise a flap.

A Bent Dithyramb

And if it won't fit, there's enjambment
A perfectly proper ornament
And I don't give a scrap
If you wince over that
Wrong inflection for some dithyramb bent.

The Timid

Should a limerick use a hard word
The most timid make sure it occurred
At the front of a line
Where they won't need to rhyme
Or concern themselves with afterward.

How to write a limerick? We have done a thousand of them.