The clerihew is a creature of delightful clumsiness. Invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley in 1905, this biographical quatrain typically thrives on a lack of polish. It stumbles through four lines of AABB rhyme, often treating meter with the same disregard a toddler has for gravity. The charm usually lies in that very awkwardness—a “school-boy doggerel” quality that punctures the dignity of its famous subjects.
However, a new challenge proposes a different kind of wit: the Metrical Clerihew.
Jean-Leon Gerome's painting of Diogenes in his tub
The Art of Controlled Whimsy
The Society of Classical Poets has issued a call for clerihews that do not merely rhyme but also scan. This imposes discipline on a form defined by its unruliness. The goal is to see if the comic effect can survive—or perhaps even be enhanced by—a steady rhythm. It asks whether the “lack of meter” in traditional examples is a necessary feature of the genre or simply an aversion to traditional craft.
To participate, the rules are deceptive in their simplicity but demanding in practice:
Length: Exactly four lines.
Rhyme: A strict AABB scheme.
Subject: A famous person, named at the end of the first line.
The Twist: The lines must possess a recognizable, consistent meter.
A Diogenes Example
To demonstrate that a clerihew can indeed march to a beat without losing its punchline, Talbot Hook provided this specimen involving the famous Greek cynic:
The ever straight-shooting Diogenes,
No stranger to creatures’ biologies,
Gave Platonic depiction a lickin’
By presenting him with a plucked chicken.
Here, the rhythm supports the joke rather than distracting from it. The challenge for writers is to find that sweet spot where the constraint of meter forces a more creative, rather than a more wooden, rhyme.
The Invitation
Writers are invited to try their hand at this specific intersection of high skill and low comedy. The meter does not need to match Mr. Hook’s example, nor does it need to be solemn. It simply needs to exist.
This exercise forces the poet to wrestle with the essence of light verse. Is a joke funnier when it is blurted out, or when it arrives with the precision of a ticking clock? Submit your best attempts to the comments section of the original challenge and see if you can tame the wildest form in English poetry.
Jean-Leon Gerome's painting of Diogenes in his tub
