Edmund Clerihew Bentley was an English humorist and novelist who
lived from July 10th, 1875 to March 30 1956. His first published
poetry collection was, “Biography for Beginners,” 1905. That fist
book made popular the poetry form now called the Clerihew. He later
published two other collections.
The Clerihew form existed long before E. C. Bentley’s
birth, the man for whom it is named. As a youth Abraham Lincoln
wrote, “Abraham Lincoln is my name, and with my pen I wrote the
same, I wrote in both hast and speed, and left it here for fools to
read.”
The Clerihew has four lines with the first stating who
the subject is, continuing to tell something humorous about the
subject. The rhyme sequence is, aabb, with no specified number of
syllables. Bentley wrote his first “Clerihew” during a lecture while
in college, “Sir Humphrey Davy, Abominated gravy, He lived in the
odium, Of having discovered sodium.”
The Clerihew though a rather simple form proves to be
in itself an exercise to hone the poet’s skill. Bentley’s first
“Clerihew” was whimsical and probably not truth. One should be
careful to not demean the subject with an untruth. Clerihew Bentley
used a light whimsical untruth that would not be libelous against
his subject. Some thought and of course knowledge of the subject is
needed for an accurate poetic caricature in a Clerihew poem.
If the Clerihew form of poetry had a name previously,
it has been lost in history. Clerihew Bentley was in the right place
and time to have his name immortalized; to the cleric just a title
of the poetic form, “Clerihew”.
(c) July 4, 2007 Roger W Hancock
PoetPatriot's Clerihew Poems
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