[Jan D. Hodge]

Jayne posted: "the first thing I looked up was 'Clerihew' . . . to double-check the details. . . . There isn't a specific section on it . . ."

Jayne, in the alphabetical section it is listed as "described in the section on satirical poetry." There it is defined as "a particular type of epigram," "a quatrain in dipodic meters," which is inaccurate. The clerihew is (and has been from its invention) non-metrical, with lines of (often extremely) differing length.

I am disappointed at how often Lew has misrepresented forms, another example being the double dactyl, of which he writes [boldface are his words]:

"The first line ... is always 'Higgledy-piggledy" [the original rules required that "the first line ... must be a double dactyl nonsense line, like "Higgledy-piggledy," or "Pocketa-pocketa..." In the first [1966] "compendium," nine of the 70 verses do not begin "Higgledy-piggledy," and while it remains typical to have the first line be nonsense syllables, increasingly that has not been the case, and frequently the first line is used narratively].

"The second line is a name." [Usually, yes, but the requirement was flexible even in the original "compendium," and abandoned altogether in a verse by Pascal (co-creator of the form) with "Pocketa, pocketa, / Bard of ill omen, I / Hereby renounce the / Poetical life.]"

"The second line of the second stanza [i.e., l. 6] is a double dactyl . . ." [The didactylic word is most commonly in the sixth line, but the original rules required only that there must be at least one didactylic word "somewhere in the poem, though preferably in the second stanza, and ideally in the antepenultimate line." In the original compendium it occurs in l. 5 eight times and l. 7 twelve times; four verses have more than one didactylic word.] ". . . adverb or other modifier." [The original rules make no such a restriction. In fact, though predictably a majority of didactylic words will be adjectives or adverbs, there are at least 22 didactylic nouns in the original compendium, including "hendecasyllables," "counterintelligence," "idiosyncrasy," "epithalamion," "verisimilitude," "valedictorian," and several German nouns.]

There is also, unfortunately, an error in his own example of the form, otherwise devastatingly clever:

. . . . .Higgledy-piggledy
. . . . .Hennery Longfellow
. . . . .Wrote out his verses in
. . . . .Meters and rhymes

. . . . .One might describe as
. . . . .Hiawathetical
. . . . .If one were Minnehaha-
. . . . .Ing betimes.

Since the name is pronounced Minnehaha, the last two lines as written are thrown off metrically and rhythmically. If, however, as I suspect was his intent, the lines were broken "If one were Minneha- / Ha-ing betimes" both the form and the rhythm would be corrected, and the pun on "ha-ha" more effectively emphasized. (P.S.: I pointed this out to him when the volume was still in the process of being put together.)

I smiled when, Lew being Lew, he couldn't resist "correcting" Billy Collins, "Who misspelled the form he invented" ["perhaps it should be spelled with an o"] and suggested that "merely repeating lines can be boring," which of course is the crux of Collins's joke. How ironic that an apparent printer's error sabotaged his own supposed improvement on the paradelle (or "parodelle") by omitting a line.

I write this not to denigrate the volume (it is certainly welcome and useful, and I am not ungrateful to be included in it), but to suggest that some caution be exercised when taking it as an authoritative guide.

Jan