A Clerihew (or clerihew) is a very specific kind of short humorous verse, typically with the following properties:

• It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; but it is hardly ever satirical, abusive or obscene
• It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect)
• The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of a well-known person's name.

The form was invented by and is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley. As a student, Bentley invented the clerihew on Humphrey Davy (see below) during his studies, and it was a great hit with his friends. The first use of the word in print was in 1928.Oxford English Dictionary

Bentley's friend, G. K. Chesterton, was a practitioner of the clerihew and one of the sources of its popularity. However, other serious authors also produced clerihews, including W. H. Auden. Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous or otherwise lofty individuals and reposition them in an absurd or commonplace setting. The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length are parodic of the limerick (NPEPP 219). The chief literary form the clerihew parodies is that of eulogy and of schoolboy notes (which is its origin).

Examples

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The first ever Clerihew:

Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

More on [ Clerihew ]

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Fiction & Poetry

We Did Not Make Ourselves
Michael Dickman Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
We did not make ourselves is one thing I keep singing into my hands while falling asleep for just a second before I have to get up and turn on all the lights in the house, one after the other, like opening an Advent calendar My brain opening the chemical . . .
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Jeffrey Skinner Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Why do you keep returning, alive, able to walk and gesture as you could not at the end, your movements sketchy, more holographic than warm? Thanksgiving dinner with all the relatives and I alone with the suspicion I cannot speak: You should be elsewhere. Heavy drinking, as always. The newest . . .
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Janet Frame Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Do you remember your twenty-first birthday? The party, the cake, and cutting a slice of it to put under your pillow that night, to make you dream of your future beloved; the giant key; the singing: I’m twenty-one today! Twenty-one today! I’ve got the key of the . . .
Isola Bella
C. K. Stead Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In the stony garden with the bronze plaque that misquotes her she called down from the terrace, “Friend or foe?” She carried a parasol. Her hair was a shiny cap, her face a mask. “Friend of friends,” I answered--“Lawrence . . . Carco . . . Bertie Russell . . .” At each name the mask half-revealed . . .
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Mahmoud Darwish Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Here the birds’ journey ends, our journey, the journey of words, and after us there will be a horizon for the new birds. We are the ones who forge the sky’s copper, the sky that will carve roads after us and make amends with our names above the distant cloud . . .
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Tobias Wolff Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Odysseus turned his back on the harbour and followed a rough track leading through the woods and up to the hills toward the place where Athene had told him . . .” Richard read on for a time. He was restless but tried to take an interest in Odysseus’ journey to the home . . .

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