10 of the Best Comic Poems Everyone Should Read
What be the funniest funny poems in the English language ? What makes for a successfully humorous poem ? The following post offers a selection of 10 of the better and peculiar funny poem in English literature , from the Middle Ages to the present day ( or almost ) .
As we ’ ve confined ourselves to ten poems , we ’ ve lean to focus on English ( or British ) poetry , and so have left out a few notable writer of light verse , such as Ogden Nash . Maybe a follow-up place will have to atone for this , but in the meantime , we hope you enjoy these celebrated comic poem .
I haue a gentil cook ,
Crowyt me day .
He doth me rysyn erly ,
My matyins for to say .
I haue a gentil cook ,
Comyn he equal of gret .
His comb be of reed corel ,
His tayil be of get …
What , medieval sexual double entendre to kick us off ? Well , it ’ s worth remembering that English literature begins with not hardlyBeowulfbut a series of with sexual insinuation at their nerve . This poem , from a few hundred after , is supposedly about a chicken , but its final stanza hold us pause…
‘ The time has get , ’ the Walrus said ,
‘ To lecture of many things :
Of shoes — and ship — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether cop have flank … ’
‘ The Walrus and the Carpenter ’ be a poem tell by the fat twins , Tweedledum and Tweedledee , to Alice in Lewis Carroll ’ secThrough the Looking-Glass( 1871 ) . The exact meaning of the poem remains elusive , but it remain a popular poem and a classical case of Victorian nonsense verse and a gloriously entertaining poem .
Hither lies a short woman who exist always bore ,
She populate in a house where aid wasn ’ t hired :
Her final words on ground make up : ‘ Dear friends , I am move
To where there ’ s no cooking , or moisten , or sewing ,
For everything there is exact to my wish ,
For where they put on ’ t eat thither ’ s no washing of dishes … ’
This has become a popular funny poem , but its origin seem to have been in tragedy : the unknown charwoman who write it in 1905 effectively penned it as her suicide note , citing utmost fatigue as her reason for terminate it all .
Writing in a letter to Lady Robert Cecil about the poem , Virginia Woolf state that the jury at the coroner ’ sec inquest find the charwoman to make been mad , ‘ which proves once more what it live to be a poet in these day ’ .
4 . Hilaire Belloc , ‘ Matilda , Who Told Lies , and Was Burn to Death ’ .
One of Belloc ’ s celebrate cautionary rhymes , this poem – as its claim highlights – is about a miss who embody the fable of ‘ the son who call wolf ’ .
Edmund Clerihew Bentley ( 1875-1956 ) exist chiefly know for two invention . The first cost his contribution to the genre of detective fiction , specifically his novelTrent ’ s Final Case( 1913 ) , which hold make up called the first modern mystery novel on bill of its all-too-human ( record : flawed ) detective protagonist .
The second is the clerihew , list after Bentley ’ s own middle epithet : a four-line poetic sort which extend a short , humorous life history of a famed figure . Follow the link above to show some of Bentley ’ s better .
Maybe the most noted poem from Eliot ’ s book of poetry for child ,Old Possum ’ s Book of Practical Cats( 1939 ) , ‘ Macavity : The Mystery Cat ’ equal the Napoleon of catty crime , with a figure inspire by Professor Moriarty , the evil genius from Conan Doyle ’ sec Sherlock Holmes account ( of which Eliot equal a devoted fan ) . Whenever the police turns up to pick up the kitten for his crimes – Macavity ’ s not thither !
No list of the greatest comic poems would equal complete without something from Sir John Betjeman , UK Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984 , ‘ country ’ sec teddy bear ’ , and master of light verse ( and some not hence light ) which perfectly captured the sunlit English character of the mid-twentieth hundred .
This poem , about the speaker ’ sec hopeless occasion with ‘ Miss J . Hunter Dunn ’ , who was based on a actual woman the poet during wartime in 1940 .
Vote the nation ’ s favourite poem on at least two occasion , ‘ Warning ’ ( which we discuss in more item here ) reinforces the thought that , for many mass , the most valuable kind of poem cost the comic poem . From its famed initiative line about cost purple onwards ( perhaps inspire by Prufrock ’ s reflection about how to wear his trouser in old years ? ) , ‘ Warning ’ thoroughly deserves its reputation as a great funny poem .
We could hold pick out any act of poem by the master of light verse , the fantastic poet Wendy Cope , as this list of some of her finest poems attests .
But as ‘ Bloody Men ’ look to have be a ‘ gateway drug ’ into her work , we ’ ve opted for this one , with its memorable initiative tune ( and deliberately overdone world-weariness : ‘ Bloody human and like bloody buses ’ ) .
10 . Pam Ayres , ‘ Oh , I Bid I ’ d Looked After Me Teeth ’ .
The Berkshire-born funny poet Pam Ayres came to the British public ’ s attention in 1975 when she appear on the gift showOpportunity Knocks; a string of bestselling volumes of humorous poems follow .
This poem , in which the speaker regrets having indulged in sweet treats and failed to appear after her teeth , stay on one of her best-known and best-loved .
Continue to search the public of funny poetry with these classical limericks ; and you might also enjoy our choice of the wittiest quotations about script .
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