Directory of Limerick Resources

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The limerick consists of five anapestic lines rhymed aabba. The first, second, and fifth lines are trimeter; the third and fourth lines are dimeter. The form dates back at least to the fourteenth century. In its modern form, it is often, though not always, bawdy.

Resources in This Category

• A Blog of Bosh: Edward Lear and Nonsense Literature

  https://nonsenselit.wordpress.com/
  A blog that collects a number of sites relating to Edward Lear, the creator of the limerick.

• Alien Limerick Generator

  http://www.herald.co.uk/~mel/limerick.html
  This interactive 'net artifact is an exercise in computer glossolalia that allows users to randomly generate metrically perfect nonsense-limericks--in an "alien" (that is, not spoken, now nor ever, on Earth) language.

• Bibliography of Limericks

  http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~dilcher/limericks.html
  List of print books of and on limericks, compiled by Karl Dilcher.

• Funny Limericks For Everyone

  http://www.funny-limericks-for-everyone.co.uk/
  A limerick blog, with a clean, humorous limerick posted each day. Includes a limerick generator and accepts submissions.

• Giggle Poetry - The Limerick

  http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poetryclassdetail.aspx?LessonPlanID=2
  Limerick writing for kids. By Bruce Lansky.

• Limerick Books of the 1820s

  http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/limbooks/index.html
  The two earliest known books of limericks, with a link to a third. Part of an Edward Lear home page.

• Limerick o' the Day

  http://pagebuild.com/limerick/limerick.htm
  A daily (ribald) limerick, with an archive of previously featured limericks.

• Limerick Poems

  http://limerickpoems.org/
  Invites visitors to write and rate limericks. Includes a "how to" section and a description of the form.

• Limerick Poetry

  http://www.dltk-holidays.com/patrick/m-limerick.htm
  A limerick page for children, with a simple explanation and some family-friendly examples, including the option to print out limericks in color. Be warned: the site generates pop-up and new-browser-window ads.

• Limericks

  http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/limerick.htm
  Limericks by teachers in England. Includes suggestions for classroom activities.

• Limericks

  http://www.famousliteraryworks.com/limericks.htm
  A brief history and explanation along with numerous examples from "A Book of Nonsense" by Edward Lear.

• Limericks

  http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/Projects/Poetry/limerick.html
  A discussion of the form by Joel D. Ash, a writer of serious limericks, with examples of serious limerick poetry, including one of his own. However, beware: the two links to books of and about limericks do not work.

• Limericks by Brownielocks

  http://www.brownielocks.com/Limericks.html
  Clean and funny limericks.

• Loony Limericks

  http://home.earthlink.net/~kristenaa/
  Huge and still growing collection of limericks both naughty and nice. Visitors can also add a line to the mass limerick.

• Meskhi lines

  http://meskhi.livejournal.com/
  Limericks and short lines by Slava Meskhi. English, Russian and Georgian languages.

• OEDILF - The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

  http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php
  A project to write at least one limerick for every word in the English language.

• Polish Limericks

  http://www.limeryki.pl/English/English.html
  Translations of English and Polish limericks (English-Polish and Polish-English).

• Smithsonian Magazine - "The Limerick is Furtive and Mean..."

  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/the-limerick-is-furtive-and-mean-68444799/
  From the Maigue poets to Ogden Nash, witty wordsmiths have delighted in composing the oft-risqué five-line verses. Introductory article.

• The "L" Blog

  http://its-the-l-blog.blogspot.com/
  A limerick blog. The limericks, however, are not in the classic form, and the rhymes are often not exact.

• The Classic Nantucket Limerick

  http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/poetry/art8660.html
  The original Nantucket limerick published in the Princeton Tiger in 1924, with various extensions that appeared in other publications.

• The Limerick

  http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Handbook/limerick.html
  A brief but insightful description of the limerick form.

• There Was a Young Man Who Sent E-mails

  http://www.richardlong.org.uk/
  The incomplete collected limericks of Richard C. Long.

• Tomastic Limericks

  http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/limerick/stthomas.html
  An article with commentary from The Pentatette concerning early limerick-like prayers written by St. Thomas Aquinas.

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