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Limerick Day

Hobby · Fun · May 12

Limerick Day honors the five-line comic poem with its bouncing rhythm, AABBA rhymes and a twist saved for the final line.

Limerick Day falls on Wednesday, May 12, 2027. That is 197 days away.

A limerick is a short comic poem of five lines. The first, second and fifth lines are longer and rhyme with each other. The third and fourth are shorter and share a rhyme of their own. Read one aloud and you will hear the rhythm almost before the words, a sort of da-da-DUM gallop that carries the reader toward a punch line.

The form is old and well traveled. Edward Lear, the English writer of nonsense verse, made it famous with books of limericks about odd people in odd places. Many traditional examples still begin the way his did, with a person from somewhere, which hands the poet a place name to rhyme against. That habit explains a lot of strained rhymes for towns with awkward endings.

Part of the appeal is that almost anyone can write one. The rules are tight enough to give shape and loose enough to leave room for mischief. Teachers use limericks to show how meter works, and friends trade them the way other people trade riddles. The hardest line is usually the last one, which has to land the joke and close the rhyme at once.

People mark the day by reading favorites aloud, writing new ones about pets, coworkers or lunch, and passing them around. A good limerick tends to be quoted from memory long after the page is closed, usually by someone who gets the rhythm slightly wrong and laughs anyway.

Ways to celebrate

• Write a limerick about your pet, your street or your breakfast.
• Read a few Edward Lear limericks aloud to someone.
• Swap limericks with friends and vote on the best last line.
• Try rhyming your own town's name in a five-line poem.

Dates

All national days on May 12

Also on May 12

• National Nutty Fudge Day
• National Odometer Day
• National School Nurse Day

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