Tuesday, 8th August, 2017
There are those who think Rhythm & Rhyme and Poetry are barely related. As far as I am concerned, rhythmic-rhyming poetry is as legitimate a form as any other - I would argue that it’s the poetry of ordinary life, not literary life, and no less important.
My Dad called his poetry doggerel: he undersold himself.
For non-UK readers, Benny Hill was a 'naughty’ comedian of the ‘old school’ who crafted saucy lyrics..
Ah, but is it poetry?
I hear some people say:
Merely flimsy whimsy!
Simple rhyming! Childish play!
It’s what it is, I answer;
Define it as you will;
It’s not so much yer Shakespeare -
It’s more yer Benny Hill.
It’s not limerick or quatrain,
Or a classic villanelle ...
It’s not an ode or elegy
Or even doggerelle ...
It’s not sonnet, epic, ballad,
Free form or haiku;
It’s not a given form at all -
Not even clerihew.
Thus ...
Sir Christopher Wren
Said: “I’ll dine with some men.
If anyone calls:
I am designing St. Paul's."
(Edmund Clerihew Bentley, 1905)
So, I call upon my father,
Who passed on this rhythm and rhyme,
To witness that I’m doing
What he did all the time.
He wrote it as he felt it -
With no Literature degree,
And if it’s good enough for him,
Then it is good enough for me.
