The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram
Laureates disdain the limerick, poetic device of many a hick.
But not always. Case in point, Paul Ingram, renowned wit and bookseller at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, who weathered the limeridicule and released this lost-for-many-years collection of rhymes and reasoned crackpottery.
Ingram’s poems follow an AABB rhyme scheme popularized by English crime writer Edmund Clerihew Bentley, wherein “the first line must include the name of a well-known or ill-known person. The second line must rhyme and mock. The second couplet should mock and further mock. The Clerihews which took possession of me were of a particularly vicious strain,” according to Ingram.
Fun, wicked, often brilliant, all of Ingram’s one-hundred-plus Clerihews come adorned with a playful sketch by Julia Anderson-Miller.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
