a change

[1skylande1]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

[ellajam]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

Hi skylande, welcome.

A limerick should have a regular meter with an aabba rhyme scheme. Your poem doesn't fit these requirements, but I'm sure you could edit it to make it work.

Here's an example from a limerick thread on site.

billy wrote:
When Vincent van Gogh lost an ear,
the state of his mind wasn't clear.
He made an impression
to teach her a lesson;
he should have just stuck to the beer.

His jabberwock came in a flash.
The jubjub flew in with panache.
Was he so erudite,
or just talking shite;
or did he write nonsense for cash?

Good luck with it.

[ChristopherSea]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

Hi skylande, welcome.

A limerick should have a regular meter with an aabba rhyme scheme. Your poem doesn't fit these requirements, but I'm sure you could edit it to make it work.

Here's an example from a limerick thread on site.

billy wrote:
When Vincent van Gogh lost an ear,
the state of his mind wasn't clear.
He made an impression
to teach her a lesson;
he should have just stuck to the beer.

His jabberwock came in a flash.
The jubjub flew in with panache.
Was he so erudite,
or just talking shite;
or did he write nonsense for cash?

Good luck with it.

You mean a man from Nantucket is not a requirement Ella?

[ellajam]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

Hi skylande, welcome.

A limerick should have a regular meter with an aabba rhyme scheme. Your poem doesn't fit these requirements, but I'm sure you could edit it to make it work.

Here's an example from a limerick thread on site.

billy wrote:
When Vincent van Gogh lost an ear,
the state of his mind wasn't clear.
He made an impression
to teach her a lesson;
he should have just stuck to the beer.

His jabberwock came in a flash.
The jubjub flew in with panache.
Was he so erudite,
or just talking shite;
or did he write nonsense for cash?

Good luck with it.

You mean a man from Nantucket is not a requirement Ella?

It depends on what you want it to rhyme with.
Please excuse our nonsense, Skylande, looking forward to your edit.

[tectak]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

Hello and welcome. You mean advice. Learn to spell furst an fourmoast.

Limericks, as read, are tempting because they blatantly entertain. Writing a limerick is not quite as easy as you might first think because the over-riding intent is to write a witty piece and not bother about anything else. In which case you will fail.

Let's look at your limerick without over-egging the technicalities.

L1 is fairly standard. There once was a X (adjective) X(noun) from/of/in X xx(noun),
Who X X X X X X X.
So you write:
There once was a young(adjective), childish(adjective) man(noun).
You are compromised already.Can you see the difference? You DO NOT have to rigidly adhere to the limerick rhythm BUT if you do not you MUST be able to confidently cover your variation. That word "childish" is entirely superfluous because it is not essential to the "joke". I now make the point I mentioned before.You are now compromised because you are foul-hooked on the idea of a limerick but have lost all the impetus to make the witty pass.Your next line confirms this.
Who loved science and got dirty hands. Huh?
or:
Who wanted a red and white van
Who though that he lived in a can
Who jumped of the Grand Coolee Damn.
See the point? There is no point.
But:
There once was a young man from Spain
who never went out in the rain.
He was drier by far
than a Clairol foot spar
used once, but never again.

...and that is all there is to it but DO notice the significance of NOT rhyming a word with the same word ( in your case hand and hand), taking note of meter ( in your case "el/ e/ gant/ pret /ty /a/lit/tle /ner/ dy" compared to " than/ a/ Clair/ ol/foot /spar" You can count, yes? and CONNECTING the significant points made in each line.
Try again BUT read some limericks OUT LOUD to get the idea...which you haven't got yet.,
Best,
tectak

[billy]

i'll second what tom said. plus...keep at it and have some fun.

[ChristopherSea]

This looked like a good example without the constraint of 'there once was a man...'

A notable Limerick - which won an Irish 'Listowel Writers Week' prize in 1998 - exemplifies the structure:

Writing a Limerick's absurd,
Line one and line five rhyme in word,
And just as you've reckoned
They rhyme with the second;
The fourth line must rhyme with the third.


Good luck with it./Chris

[1skylande1]

I sincerely thank you all for your replies and recommends. Your opinions helped a lots. I realize my weakness now , so I will house myself in the workshop threads and learn poems first before trying another one :d

[billy]

keep trying another one, use every poem as a stepping stone to the next.

[Mopkins]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands. -1skylande1


hello.

I don't think a limerick is an ideal form for a love poem - unless that love is funny or bawdy which in this case it isn't.

So what if he's young, childish, dirty-handed, and so what if she's elegant, pretty, a little nerdy - none of this contribute to the conclusion - that he (presumably) wants her hand (not hands) in marriage. This is all just fluffy filler.

A limerick should have a good rhythm - you should be able to sing it, yours has an uneven meter. Meter takes time to learn and master - but it's essential in a limerick.

Your rhyming is a bit off - and the repetition of hands weakens the poem.

If you want to write a poem about a serious love, a form usually reserved for humor is not the ideal one to choose. Perhaps you should be trying to write sonnets instead.

However, all that aside its not bad for a second attempt at the form. Try reading as many limericks as you can, and say/sing them aloud to get a feel for the meter.

Keep at it!

[Burlesque3Rogue]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

To be honest I don't think that this works very well as a limerick as the format is completely off. I do however think that if you work a little bit more on the rhythm and expand it a bit it could be a wonderful story poem.

Xx

[California]

Indeed I miss the continuation) It could be a nice joky ballad if you made it not so short