Little Willie rhymes

Last updated

Little Willie rhymes are light verses including an indifferent or cheerfully inappropriate response to a gruesome act of violence in a quatrain form attributed to Harry Graham (1874-1936). The earliest was included among the Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes published in 1898 under Graham's pen name Col. D. Streamer while he was serving in the Coldstream Guards. [1]

Contents

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy. [2]

The above meter and line length, often rhymed aabb, [3] was subsequently relaxed with alternative rhyming scheme abab as illustrated by the following verse from a 1904 collection of Willie Ballads:

Willie walking on the track,
The engine gave the worst of squeals,
And then they turned the engine back
And scraped off Willie from the wheels. [4]

This genre of poetic black humor remained popular into the 21st century. [1] The Washington Post ran a contest in 2011 encouraging readers to compose examples. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

In poetry, enjambment is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin of the word is credited to the French word enjamber, which means 'to straddle or encroach'.

In poetry, metre or meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ogden Nash</span> American poet

Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by The New York Times the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poetry</span> Form of literature

Poetry, also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle.

A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.

This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alliterative verse</span> Form of verse

In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principle ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many Middle English poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Alliterative Morte Arthur all use alliterative verse.

Terza rima is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines in the tercet that follows. The poem or poem-section may have any number of lines, but it ends with either a single line or a couplet, which repeats the rhyme of the middle line of the previous tercet.

Jocelyn Henry Clive 'Harry' Graham was an English writer. He was a successful journalist and later, after distinguished military service, a leading lyricist for operettas and musical comedies, but he is now best remembered as a writer of humorous verse in a style of grotesquerie and black humour.

Articles related to literature include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of literary terms</span> Terms and concepts used in language, literature, and literary analysis

This glossary of literary terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in the discussion, classification, analysis, and criticism of all types of literature, such as poetry, novels, and picture books, as well as of grammar, syntax, and language techniques. For a more complete glossary of terms relating to poetry in particular, see Glossary of poetry terms.

This is a glossary of poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)</span> English Christmas carol

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol. A classic example of a cumulative song, the lyrics detail a series of increasingly numerous gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. The carol, whose words were first published in England in the late eighteenth century, has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68. A large number of different melodies have been associated with the song, of which the best known is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin.

Perfect rhyme—also called full rhyme, exact rhyme, or true rhyme—is a form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions:

<i>Light</i> (journal) Online literary magazine

Light is an online journal which bills itself as "America's oldest and best-known journal of light verse."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert W. Service</span> British-Canadian poet and writer (1874–1958)

Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called "the Bard of the Yukon". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade, but spent long periods travelling in the west in the United States and Canada, often in poverty. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was inspired by tales of the Klondike Gold Rush, and wrote two poems, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", which showed remarkable authenticity from an author with no experience of the gold rush or mining, and enjoyed immediate popularity. Encouraged by this, he quickly wrote more poems on the same theme, which were published as Songs of a Sourdough, and achieved a massive sale. When his next collection, Ballads of a Cheechako, proved equally successful, Service could afford to travel widely and live a leisurely life, basing himself in Paris and the French Riviera.

Virginia Margaret Graham was a London-born English writer, critic and poet, whose humorous verses on Second World War subjects were republished in London by Persephone Books in 2000 as Consider the Years 1938–1946. The first edition was published in 1946 by Jonathan Cape. She had a long correspondence with Joyce Grenfell, which was later published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Doty Bates</span> American author

Clara Doty Bates was a 19th-century American author who published a number of volumes of poetry and juvenile literature. Many of these works were illustrated, the designs being furnished by her sister. Her work was published in St. Nicholas Magazine, The Youth's Companion, Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Wide Awake, Godey's Lady's Book, and Peterson's Magazine. During the World's Columbian Exposition, she had charge of the Children's Building. Bates died in 1895.

Poetic devices are a form of literary device used in poetry. Poems are created out of poetic devices composite of: structural, grammatical, rhythmic, metrical, verbal, and visual elements. They are essential tools that a poet uses to create rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or intensify a mood or feeling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cruel jokes</span> Series of sick humor jokes

Cruel jokes is a joke cycle dealing with cruelty and macabre topics. They belong to the category of sick humor. Typical examples:

References

  1. 1 2 McKenty, Bob. "Spectrum: Little Willies". Light . Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  2. Streamer, Col. D. (1901). Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes. New York: R.H. Russell.
  3. "Little Willie". Glossary of Poetic Terms. Poets' Graves. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  4. Robbins, F.N. (1904). The Willie Ballads with other Limericks and Nonsense Rhymes. Columbia, South Carolina: R.L. Bryan Company. p.  9.
  5. "Give us the Willies". The Washington Post . Retrieved 19 December 2019.