Quote:
Originally Posted by Holly Martins
I tried to write a sad limerick but failed - the form insists on comedy. Can anyone bring a tear to this leathery old cheek with a sad one?
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Maybe it depends on whose cheek? I once gave a beginning class three poems written about the death of a child, hoping to teach them something about tone and form. The author was unidentified in all cases; the poems were Ransom's "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," X. J. Kennedy's "Little Elegy," and this, which I created for the exercise:
......The deeply grieved dad sadly said
......As he sat at the edge of the bed:
............"It was just yesterday
............That I watched her at play,
......And now she's most grievously dead."
It was voted the most effective of the three. I trust they were a bit more discerning at the end of the course.