Light poetry or light verse is

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, pho ...

including

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

s, adventurous rhyme, and heavy

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

. Typically, light verse in English is formal verse, although a few

free verse Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Defi ...

poets have excelled at light verse outside the formal verse tradition. While light poetry is sometimes condemned as

doggerel Doggerel, or doggrel, is poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect. Alternatively, it can mean verse which has a monotonous rhythm, easy rhyme, and cheap or trivial meaning. The word is deri ...

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 Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, and Auden, also excelled at light verse.

Notable poets

English

* Richard Armour *

Max Beerbohm Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the '' Saturd ...

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...

* John Betjeman *

Morris Bishop Morris Gilbert Bishop (15 April 1893 – 20 November 1973) was an American scholar, historian, biographer, essayist, translator, anthologist, and poet. Early life and career Bishop was born while his father, Edwin Rubergall Bishop, a Canadian p ...

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

C. S. Calverley Charles Stuart Calverley (; 22 December 1831 – 17 February 1884) was an English poet and wit. He was the literary father of what has been called "the university school of humour". Early life He was born at Martley, Worcestershire, and given ...

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

Charles E. Carryl Charles Edward Carryl (December 30, 1841 – July 3, 1920 Contains information from the ''Dictionary of Literary Biography''.) was an American children's literature author. Biography Born in New York, Carryl became a second-generation successfu ...

* Brian P. Cleary * William Rossa Cole *

Wendy Cope Wendy Cope (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon. Biography Cope was born in Erith in Kent (no ...

* Noël Coward *

Alma Denny Alma Denenholz Kaplan (1906 – 1 March 2003) was an American poet and syndicated columnist who wrote under the pseudonym Alma Denny. Life and career Denny was born Alma Denenholz in Far Rockaway in New York City, the eldest of ten children. Sh ...

Henry Austin Dobson Henry Austin Dobson (18 January 1840 – 2 September 1921), commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. Life He was born at Plymouth, the eldest son of George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, of French descent. When he w ...

* T. S. Eliot * Willard R. Espy *

Gavin Ewart Gavin Buchanan Ewart FRSL (4 February 1916 – 23 October 1995) was a British poet who contributed to Geoffrey Grigson's ''New Verse'' at the age of seventeen. Life Ewart was born in London and educated at Wellington College, before entering ...

Charles Ghigna Charles Ghigna (born August 25, 1946), known also as Father Goose is an American poet and author of children's and adults' books. He has written more than 5,000 poems and 100 books. Ghigna was born in Bayside, Queens. His parents relocated to F ...

W. S. Gilbert Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most fam ...

Arthur Guiterman Arthur Guiterman (; November 20, 1871 Vienna – January 11, 1943 New York) was an American writer best known for his humorous poems. Life and career Guiterman was born of American parents in Vienna. His father was Alexander Gütermann, born in t ...

A. P. Herbert Sir Alan Patrick Herbert CH (A. P. Herbert, 24 September 1890 – 11 November 1971), was an English humorist, novelist, playwright, law reformist, and in 1935–1950 an independent Member of Parliament for Oxford University. Born in Ashtead, Su ...

* Oliver Herford *

Thomas Hood Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as " The Bridge of Sighs" and " The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for ''The London Magazine'', '' Athenaeum'', and ''Punch' ...

Frank Jacobs Franklin Jacobs (May 30, 1929 – April 5, 2021) was an American author of satires, known primarily for his work in '' Mad'', to which he contributed from 1957 to 2014. Jacobs wrote a wide variety of lampoons and spoof, but was best known as a ve ...

* X. J. Kennedy * Joyce La Mers * Edward Lear * Dennis Lee *

Newman Levy Newman Levy (November 30, 1888 – March 22, 1966) was an American lawyer, poet, playwright and essayist. Levy followed his father, well-known criminal attorney Abraham Levy, into law, but also pursued his own dreams of being a writer. Born in Ma ...

* J. Patrick Lewis * J. A. Lindon * Don Marquis *

David McCord David Thompson Watson McCord (November 15, 1897 in New York CityApril 13, 1997) was an American poet and college fundraiser. Life He grew up in Portland, Oregon and graduated from Harvard University. His work appeared in ''Harper's''. He raised ...

Phyllis McGinley Phyllis McGinley (March 21, 1905 – February 22, 1978) was an American author of children's books and poetry. Her poetry was in the style of light verse, specializing in humor, satiric tone and the positive aspects of suburban life. She won a ...

* David Morice *

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's bes ...

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

Maurice Sagoff Maurice Sagoff (1909 or 1910 – March 18, 1998) was an American poet best remembered for ''ShrinkLits'', his bestselling collection of light verse. Sagoff was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston College he worked for ...

Shel Silverstein Sheldon Allan Silverstein (; September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, poet, cartoonist, singer / songwriter, musician, and playwright. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended university before ...

* James Kenneth Stephen *

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...

* John Updike * John Whitworth *

John Wilmot John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester embodi ...

German

Wilhelm Busch Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch (14 April 1832 – 9 January 1908) was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day. Busch drew on the tropes of f ...

* Heinz Erhardt *

Robert Gernhardt Robert Gernhardt (13 December 1937 – 30 June 2006) was a German writer, painter, graphic artist and poet. Life Robert Gernhardt was born the son of a judge and a chemist in Tallinn, where his family was part of the Baltic German minority. I ...

Christian Morgenstern Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (6 May 1871 – 31 March 1914) was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on 7 March 1910. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin ...

Joachim Ringelnatz Joachim Ringelnatz is the pen name of the German author and painter Hans Bötticher (7 August 1883, Wurzen, Saxony – 17 November 1934, Berlin). His pen name ''Ringelnatz'' is usually explained as a dialect expression for an animal, possibly a ...

* Erich Kästner * Eugen Roth * Mascha Kaléko

Dutch

Drs. P Heinz Hermann Polzer (; 24 August 1919 – 13 June 2015), better known under his pseudonym Drs. P (), was a Swiss singer-songwriter, poet, and prose writer in the Dutch language.Zanger en plezierdichter Drs. P op 95-jarige leeftijd overleden, '' ...

* Kees Stip

Publications

The following periodicals regularly publish light verse: * '' Able Muse'' * ''

Light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

'' (formerly ''Light Quarterly''), a journal of light verse * ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' runs regula
light verse competitions
* ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' runs regular light verse competitions as part of its

Style Invitational The Style Invitational, or Invite, is a long-running humor contest that ran first in the Style section of the Sunday ''Washington Post'' before moving to Saturday's Style and later returning to the Sunday paper. Started in 1993, it has run weekly, ...

Notable poets

English

German

Dutch

Publications

See also