An update to limerick chess: in its first, pure, form, even though the metrical requirements were a trifle loose, one had to be able to construct the entire game using only the limericks themselves; that is, each limerick was to contain a precise specification of the move to which it corresponded, either by incorporating algebraic chess notation or a description of the move or what have you. One of the chief drawbacks to this system is that it is extremely hard to maintain interest in the exercise over the course of an entire game, and the limericks themselves are rather difficult to compose. So now, without explicitly theorizing about the matter but rather diving straight in (in fact I had nothing to do with it) my previous limerick chess partner and I are playing a variant in which each move must merely be accompanied by a limerick, hopefully about the move or the state of the game, but not necessarily containing the move. Not only are these limericks easier to compose, but the freedom in terms of subject matter allows one to have limerick-exchanges on the same topic, as in a recent one about the ultimate disposition of one of my bishops. However, as yet, none of the limericks has had anything as great as "to fall for your feint / is something I deign't", though I did just rhyme "calmly" and "balm'ly".
A specification of the hybrid verse form, haikumerick: it contains three lines of five, seven, and five syllables each. The fifth, or fourth and fifth, syllable(s) of each line must rhyme, and the sixth and second, or seventh and third, syllables of the second and third lines must rhyme. In an ideal world, it should make a modicum of sense. Here is a stupid example I ginned up after utterly failing to write "Haikumerick: on the Haikumerick" on the model of that Keats sonnet during an Iva Bittová concert: "There once was a man / Who thought up the plan: drive to / Maldives in a van".
a blogger: he's Ben!
rebuking mere men with laughs,
grammar gaffes, he ken!
Posted by: horus kemwer | November 04, 2007 at 08:05 PM