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RE: The Steemit Conspiracy - A doubled limerick (Original Poem)

in #poetry8 years ago

It's amusing but not strictly a limerick. The syllables in each line should be 8 8 5 5 8. A little more effort and it would have been perfect. I know that I'm being a pedant here but limericks lose a little humour when they don't flow properly.

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"Met dolphins all full of esteem"
"So the whales all started to scream"
"The minnows then started to strike"
"And then the whales called up a pike"
"The end was extreme"
"Now dollars get trapped in a fyke"

Im sure the rule is 8-9 and 5 -6 but i might be wrong )))

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Limerick

The problemis in anapestic meter - thats the hardestr bit

In the wiki example, 8 8 5 6 8, the 6 was ok because whilst "dispose" is 2 syllables it is read quickly to keep the beat: "to dispose of the rat".
To make your second line sound right, I would have to read either "whowere" or "werefull", like they were one word and it's just not intuitive to do that, so the beat is lost.
Poetry should be musical but the sound is from the beat (and the syllables and vowels), so it is very important to get the beat right.