Light poetry
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Light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Poems considered "light" are usually brief, and can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature wordplay, including puns, adventurous rhyme and heavy alliteration. Typically, light verse in English is formal verse, although a few free verse poets, such as Billy Collins, have excelled at light verse outside the formal verse tradition.
While light poetry is sometimes condemned as doggerel, or thought of as poetry composed casually, humor often makes a serious point in a subtle or subversive way. Many of the most renowned "serious" poets, such as Horace, Swift, Pope and Auden, have also excelled at light verse.
In English, poets who are well known for their light poetry include:
- Hilaire Belloc
- Lord Byron
- Henry Austin Dobson
- T. S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats)
- Willard R. Espy
- W. S. Gilbert
- Ben Jonson
- Edward Lear
- Ogden Nash
- Dorothy Parker
- Alexander Pope
- Shel Silverstein
- Jonathan Swift
[edit] See also
- Clerihew
- Double dactyl
- Epigram
- Limerick
- McWhirtle
- Nonsense verse
- Michael Braude Award for Light Verse
[edit] External links
- Light Verse Resource Center
- Light Quarterly
- asinine poetry
- Love is All Box and No Cornflakes
- Funny Poets
- The Epic of Marmarad
- A Rhyme That's Weak Every Week
- Lighten Up - quarterly light verse webzine.
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