Light poetry or light verse is

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

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, ph ...

including

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, 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 t ...

s, adventurous rhyme, and heavy

alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...

. Nonsense poetry is often considered light verse, as well as some poems that employ

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

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

free verse Free verse is an open form of poetry which does not use a prescribed or regular meter or rhyme and tends to follow the rhythm of natural or irregular speech. Free verse encompasses a large range of poetic form, and the distinction between free ...

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 de ...

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 Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

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 * SWIF ...

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

, and Auden, also excelled at light verse.

History

19th Century

Lord Byron's poem ''Beppo'' is an early and notable instance of light poetry in the 19th century, though other writers like

Winthrop Mackworth Praed Winthrop Mackworth Praed (28 July 180215 July 1839)—typically written as W. Mackworth Praed—was an English people, English politician and poet. Life Early life Praed was born in London, United Kingdom. The family name of Praed was derive ...

, Frederick Locker-Lampson, C. S. Calverley, and Austin Dobson were also influential in the

Regency In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...

and Victorian eras of the genre. The

limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

is perhaps the most recognizable form of comic or light poetry, with

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

's ''The Book of Nonsense'' being a popular and influential example.

Notable poets

English

* Richard Armour *

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

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc ( ; ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a French-English writer, politician, and historian. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. His Catholic fait ...

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architect ...

* Morris Bishop *

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

* C. S. Calverley *

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

* Charles E. Carryl * 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 (now ...

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...

* Alma Denny *

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

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

* Willard R. Espy *

Gavin Ewart Gavin Buchanan Ewart Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL (4 February 1916 – 23 October 1995) was a British poet who contributed to Geoffrey Grigson's ''New Verse'' at the age of seventeen. Early life Gavin Ewart was born in Lond ...

* Charles Ghigna *

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 * A. P. Herbert *

Oliver Herford Oliver Herford (2 December 1860 – 5 July 1935) was an Anglo-American writer, artist, and illustrator known for his pithy ''bon mots'' and skewed sense of humor. He was born in Sheffield, England on 2 December 1860 to Rev. Brooke Herford a ...

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 (poem), The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for ''The London Magazine'', '' ...

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 *

* Dennis Lee * Newman Levy * J. Patrick Lewis * J. A. Lindon *

Don Marquis Donald Robert Perry Marquis ( ; July 29, 1878 – December 29, 1937) was an American humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is remembered best for creating the characters A ...

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 where he graduated from Lincoln High School, and earned three degrees from Harvard ...

* Phyllis McGinley * David Morice *

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his Light poetry, light verse, of which he wrote more than 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyme, rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York T ...

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays based in New York; she was known for her caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker ros ...

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...

* Maurice Sagoff *

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

* James Kenneth Stephen *

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

* John Whitworth *

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

* Dr Seuss

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 Heinz Erhardt (; 20 February 1909 – 5 June 1979) was a German comedian, musician, entertainer, actor and poet. Life Heinz Erhardt was born in Riga, the son of Baltic German Kapellmeister Gustav Erhardt. He lived most of his childhood at his gr ...

* Robert Gernhardt *

Christian Morgenstern Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (6 May 1871 – 31 March 1914) was a German writer 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 in Wurzen, Saxony – 17 November 1934 in Berlin). From 1894 to 1900 he lived with his family in the Gottschedstrasse 40 in Leipzig. Profile Hi ...

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including ''Emil and the Detectives'' and '' Lisa an ...

* Eugen Roth * Mascha Kaléko

Dutch

* Drs. P *

Kees Stip Cornelis Jan (Kees) Stip (Veenendaal, August 25, 1913 – Winschoten, June 27, 2001) was a Dutch people, Dutch epigram poet. He wrote under many pseudonyms, most notably ''Trijntje Fop'' and ''Chronos''. Biography Stip studied classical languages ...

Publications

* Seaver, Robert (1908),
Ye butcher, ye baker, ye candlestick-maker
' Houghton Mifflin Company. Being sundry amusing and instructive verses for both old and young, adorned with numerous woodcuts * Auden, W. H. (originally published in 1938), ''The Oxford Book of Light Verse'', a seminal light verse anthology. Part of the Oxford Books of Verse series. The following periodicals regularly publish light verse: * '' Able Muse'' * ''

Light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

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

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'' runs regula
light verse competitions
* ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' runs regular light verse competitions as part of its Style Invitational

References

Genres of poetry Comedy {{poetry-stub de:Komische Lyrik