Clerihew

A clerihew is a humorous verse, rather similar to a limerick form that generally uses the name of a well known person for one of its rhymes.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Worked swiftly if not gently,
Tracking murderers down by a hidden clew
In whodunit and clerihew.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (who devised this form)

or

Sir Karl Popper
Perpetrated a whopper
When he boasted to the world that he and he alone
Had toppled Rudolf Carnap from his Vienna Circle throne.

by Armand T. Ringer

They may give potted history on a particular person, but they can also be about different subjects as well as in this example:

The subject of Biography
Is different from Geography,
Geography is about maps;
And Biography is about chaps.

External Links

• How to write a Clerihew poem