FriendBurst Blog

This is a Special preview for the CPC Friday Fling poetry challenge.  Poems should be posted there beginning when the challenge opens Thursday at 9 PM EST.

Friday Fling #168 February 17th 2012

Next Monday is Presidents’ Day. This is a new version of what used to be a combination of Washington’s birthday (Feb. 22nd) and Lincoln’s birthday (Feb. 12th). At first they were combined and moved to a Monday between them. Now it’s a celebration of all of them. Yes, even him.

In keeping with the CPC’s February 2012 theme of love, we thought it would be fun to challenge you to write about your favorite President, whomever he might be. Or one of your favorites if you have more than one that are neck and neck, so to speak.

Since the Presidents have all been people, or so’s the rumor, we thought the recommended format ought to be one commonly used for writing about people. Among the several which would work, two immediately came to mind: the Clerihew, and the Basterick. According to ShadowPoetry.com,

A Clerihew is a comic verse consisting of two couplets and a specific rhyming scheme,
aabb invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) at the age of 16. The poem
is about/deals with a person/character within the first rhyme. In most cases, the first
line names a person, and the second line ends with something that rhymes with the name of the person.

One of the most remembered Clerihew from Bentley’s collection is:

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

A Basterick is a Bastard Limerick, without the requirement for the first two lines to rhyme, and without the fairly strict syllable count of a proper Limerick. Basterick rules are only that you start with a line that has the person it is about doing something or going somewhere, preferably with an internal rhyme. Remember “Victor Hugo drove his Yugo?” Yeah, like that. But he or she does not have to be driving anything, just as long as some sort of action or feeling is involved.

Other than that, a Basterick rhymes the second and last lines and the third and Fourth lines, so the rhyme scheme is ABCCB. And the third and Fourth lines are usually shorter than the rest.

Here’s one I wrote for a Friday Fling challenge in early 2009 in which we featured this format:

Cheryl Holtz suffers no dolts
on the Pals’ Corral.
When she sees fools,
her heels she cools,
her caution aids Pals’ morale.

Copyright January 2009 RGD

This week the Friday Fling fetes America’s Chief Executive in Cherihews and Bastericks!

Be sure to save time to read and comment respectfully on your fellow Pals’ Presidential tributes. Then go enjoy the long weekend we have because of them!

Fickle Finger of Fate Award for  February 10th

Congratulations Ted!