The luck of the Irish is catching
On St. Patrick’s Day everyone’s matching
With green clothes and boiled dinner
You could be a winner
With a limerick — grab a pen and start scratching
The limerick has five lines of rhymes
In specific meter and time
With jokes and some verses
But please, leave out curses
A victor we’ll pick just in time
Please send us your poem post-haste
And your efforts will not go to waste
So get a head start
By the 15th of March
And you might find yourself in first place
Your taste buds are in for a treat
Paddy Murphy’s has a prize that’s real neat
If you are the winner
They’ll treat you to dinner
at the pub — now that’s pretty sweet
So please try to make us all laugh
The BDN readers and staff
Give the Blarney a kiss
And then make a wish
That your poem won’t come in dead last
If that poem wasn’t clear, the Bangor Daily News is offering a St. Patrick’s Day Limerick Contest. We want our readers to send us a limerick celebrating just about anything — the holiday, the great state of Maine, the incoming spring weather, whatever tickles your fancy.
Limericks, for the uninitiated, are short, witty, five-line rhyming poems that have their origins in 19th century Ireland and Britain. A Limerick follows a strict aabba rhyme scene. The first two and last lines have three syllabic beats, and the third and fourth have two syllabic beats. They are traditionally supposed to contain lots of wordplay, alliteration, internal rhyme and puns. They also are traditionally supposed to be a bit bawdy and even obscene, but for the BDN contest, we’re asking your limericks to stay well within a PG rating. We’d also like them to stay relatively upbeat — no political attacks or mean-spirited poems. We’re a family publication, after all.
Send up to two original limericks to the Bangor Daily News to lifestyle section writer Emily Burnham at eburnham@bangordailynews.com, in an e-mail with the heading “BDN Limerick Contest.” If you’d prefer to mail a hard copy, send it to BDN Limerick Contest, in care of Bangor Daily News Lifestyle, 491 Main St., Bangor, ME 04401. Please include your name, address and phone number with all entries.
Entries received after Tuesday, March 15, will be disqualified. We will announce a winner on St. Patrick’s Day, which is on Thursday, March 17. The winner will receive a gift certificate from Paddy Murphy’s Pub in downtown Bangor. We will run the winning limerick, along with several runners-up, in that Thursday’s Lifestyle section.
Have fun, and may the luck of the Irish be with you!
