Common
Clerihew
Whimsical, four-line biographical poem
Clerihew
A clerihew ( KLERR-ih-hyoo) is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem of a type invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person, and the remainder puts the subject in an absurd light or reveals something unknown or spurious about the subject. The rhyme scheme is A A B B {\displaystyle \mathrm {AABB} } , and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular. Bentley invented the clerihew in school and then popularized it in books. One of his best known is this (1905):
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