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Gobolinks

A Limerick about a Yak with a Jaguar on His Back

A Little about Limericks

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Gobolinks

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

A Gobolink is like an inkblot, but it’s made for fun, not for psychological analysis!  To make a gobolink, you drop a little ink on a sheet of white paper. Fold the paper in half and press down the ink on the two halves of the paper.  Then you open the paper and you have a unified image. (You’ll have a mirror image on each side of the folded paper.) 

You can see an old book of these images online at the Library of Congress.  It’s called Gobolinks, or Shadow-Pictures for Young and Old, by Ruth McEnery Stuart and Albert Bigelow Paine. (New York: The Century Co., 1896).  The authors wrote poems and limericks to go along with their gobolinks.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the book…

The Tail of Taddy PoleThere was a little polliwog
His name was Taddy Pole.
He lived within a little bog
Beside a crawfish hole.

And all the day did Taddy play,
Around a sunken log.
Until he lost his tail one day,
And then he was a frog.

*****

The Faithful Notes

An old guitar once broke its strings,
And all the musical notes took wings;
They hurried away to lands afar
But two of them stayed with the old guitar.

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa

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Posted in Arts and Crafts, Books, Countries & Cultures, English, Gobolinks, Languages, Limericks, Online Books, Poems, Poetry, USA | No Comments »

A Limerick about a Yak with a Jaguar on His Back

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

In Africa wandered a yak;
A jaguar jumped up on his back.
Said the yak, with a frown,
"Prithee quick get thee down;
You’re almost too heavy, alack!"

Definition of a Limerick: A five line poem with the form AABBA, often humorous or nonsensical verse, popularized by Edward Lear.

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Posted in Countries & Cultures, English, Languages, Limericks, Poetry, USA | 1 Comment »

A Little about Limericks

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a little information about limericks.

A limerick is a five-line poem, with the rhyming pattern A-A-B-B-A.

In other words, lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme with each other. They usually have 7-11 syllables per line.

Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other and have 5-8 syllables per line.

Limericks can be sung or recited.

Here’s an example of a limerick, written by Frank Richards.

From the elephant paddock one day,
They took poor Barbara Woodhouse away;
There’s no harm in the least,
Shouting ‘Sit’ to the beast,
But she should have got out of the way

One tale behind the word Limerick is related to the city of Limerick in Ireland. It’s said that in the 1800’s, when people would gather together for parties and such, they would sing little nonsense songs. The songs talked about people of different towns around Ireland, but they ended with the line “Will you come up to Limerick?” It’s told that these songs followed the pattern of limericks. There’s no printed proof of any of this. But that’s one of the legends about limericks!

It seems that the limerick form was known in the 1800’s. But Edward Lear from England is the man who made it popular with “A Book of Nonsense”, which was published in 1846. It contained limericks that he illustrated.

Here’s one of Lear’s limericks with an illustration:

There was an Old Man with a nose,
Who said, ‘If you choose to suppose,
That my nose is too long,
You are certainly wrong!’
That remarkable man with a nose.

So when you’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, along with your corn beef and cabbage, don’t forget to recite a few limericks!

You can find more of Edward Lear’s Limericks online at Nonsense Books by Edward Lear at Project Gutenberg.

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Posted in A Book of Nonsense, Countries & Cultures, Edward Lear, England, English, Holidays Around the World, Ireland, Languages, Limericks, Poetry, Poets, St. Patrick's Day, USA | No Comments »

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