NaPoWriMo prompt says: Today’s prompt is to write either a clerihew or a double dactyl. These are brief, usually satirical poems. The clerihew is a four-line biographical poem, with an ABAB rhyme scheme and no regular meter. Here is an example:

Sir Humphry Davy
Was not fond of gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

Double-dactyls are a bit longer and harder, with an extremely rigid rhyme/meter. A double dactyl consists of two four-line stanzas. The fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. But the meter is where it gets complicated: The first through third lines of each stanza must be six syllables, in the form of double dactyls (Stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables). The fourth line of each stanza is only four syllables long, with no particular meter requirements.

Finally, the first line of the first stanza is usually “Higgledy-piggledy” or some other repeating non-sense, like “Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake.” Note that both “higgledy-piggledy” and “pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake” are in the double dactyl form! Here’s one I wrote last year:

Higgledy-piggledy,
One Oliver Perry
Drove Brits from Lake Erie
With tactical ease.

Pressed to explain his great
nautical victory, he
laid all the blame on a
following breeze.

If you’re going to be really strict, one of the lines should consist of a single, six-syllable, double-dactyllic word (like “idiosyncrasy”). I didn’t quite manage that (and my meter’s a bit off), but you might!  Happy writing!

So here are my double-dactyls, two of them. The second one is a three-parter:

Michael I.

Higgledy Piggledy
Michael Ignatieff
harries Conservatives
thinks he knows best

Harper, Prime Minister
monomaniacal
refuses to listen
to hacks from the West

*****************

A Double Dactyl World History
from the Dinosaur to the Crusades

I. Ptero

rackety clackety
Cossimo Collini
talked of a fossil as
seagoing bird

but pterodactyl, that
strange flying reptile was
aerodynamical
if somewhat absurd.

II. Andronicus

hankety pankety
Titus Andronicus
wars with Tamora the
Queen of the Goths

Titus kills Alarbus
counterintelligence
tells him Tamora should
now be killed off.

***
III. Lionheart

Knightily mightily
Richard the Lionheart
went off crusading with
Philip of France.

Wed Berengaria
Daughter of Sancho, their
connubiality
mere happenstance.

***
Carol A. Stephen

For Day 27 NaPoWriMo asks us to  write a nursery rhyme or clapping rhyme. Most nursery and clapping rhymes have strong rhythms, use rhyme and repetition extensively, and aren’t overly concerned with making sense. If you’re having trouble getting started, you might start with an existing nursery or clapping rhyme and play with its form, substituting words. Hopefully, this will make for a fun and easy way to end your work-week!

Here’s a skipping rhyme and two very bad nursery rhymes:

Slamming with Dragons Skipping Rhyme

I had a little dragon
His name was Silly Sam
I put him in a contest to see if he could slam
He took all the prizes, he ate the youngest judge
He got so full he couldn’t move even with a nudge
Out flew the timekeeper
Out flew the crowd
Out flew the poets from Poetry Out Loud
In crawled the timekeeper
In crawled the crowd
In crawled the poets from Poetry Out Loud

***

Figgerty, foggerty, filk
The cow gives up her milk
The pail is full
The cow stands still
Figgerty foggerty filk

***

Flim flugel flugel, the boy and his bugle
The poet has lost all her rhyme
Her syllable plan didn’t quite scan
And her iams just couldn’t keep time

Carol A. Stephen, April 27, 2012

Carol A. Stephen