Clerihew contest!

Public fatuity brought on academic wrath.
Fair Harvard blushed like a girl confused by math,
And Larry Summers got his oust.
Welcome, President Faust!

Pop country sensation Shania Twain,
Who managed to stay quite sane
Despite years as a POW camp resident,
Decided, "Heck, how bad could it be to be President?"

Spiritual celeb the Dalai Lama
Never misses a comma
In his excellent and moving speeches.
Aren't they peaches?

Robin says: The above clerihews have been edited to conform to the rules of the contest.

Carrie Bradshaw wed her man
Though nuptials chucked the gala plan
Mr. Big freaked out – he fled that NYCity wedding
But love trumped Sex with a fairy tale ending.

Robin says: Clerihews about fictional characters are also quite welcome!

In the News:
Reading about Robert Mugabe
Just makes me sobby.
Could it be those folks had it easier
Back when it was still Rhodesier?

We really haven't heard much from Ben Bernanke
About the hanky-panky
That caused the subprime mortgage crisis, or what he espouses
To punish the guys that made us lose our houses.

Bill Gates
Has left the giant software company everyone hates.
"Hey, Mistah?
Are *you* gonna use Vista?"

I really miss George Carlin.
Despite the swearin' and snarlin'
He always hoped people could do more than act stupid and chase money.
And, oh my God, was he funny!

Mary Poppins
Distinguished herself with dramatic drop-ins.
You can always tell a
Magical nanny by the dignified grace of her umbrella.

Inigo Montoya
Went on a mission to destroy a
Man with six fingers.
Revenge is sweet, but the scent of blood lingers.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
Listen to your father’s ghost, and then mark
How your uncle’s now king and well-wed.
What do you need, to be hit over the head?

Edmund Clerihew Bentley,
You guide users of poetic form, but gently.
Whoever invented the sonnet chose to dictate meter, but you eschew
Such stringent rules for the clerihew.

How Vogue, she cried, how Manolo Blahnik
These sky high heels, a single city girl’s loneliness tonic
Blisters be damned, it’s my choice - I choose my Jimmy Choo’s
Shoes.

Nolan Ryan
left 'em cryin'
with his gas.
His balls were fast.

Jorie Graham
once said, "I am,
I think. Or not.
At least I'm hot!"

Stanley Plumly
sits there glumly,
eyes a-glisten.
Forced to listen.

Mark Strand
will lift no hand
to taste a wine
before its time.

Frank Bidart
bent over Art,
called the friction
stuff of fiction.

The Sea Rose

Hilda Dolittle, tall and 'Greek,'
ran straight into the sea.

Pound pulled her out in a single piece,
H.D., Imagiste.

Riposte

Ezra Pound
's mind was sound

from A Lume Spento
to The Pisan Cantos.

At Harvard Yard

Would Archibald MacLeish
walk a lobster on a leash?

Even a crustacean
Would rather be than mean.

The Fifth Quartet

T.S. Eliot
didn't go out.

He stayed in
with Vivienne.

O, to Be a Dragon

Marianne Moore, at the zoo,
looked more stork than gnu.

At the baseball game,
she looked the same.

The Troubles of a Book

Laura Riding
went into hiding.

The Fugitive poet vanished
into the study of language.

Duly Apostrophized

John Crowe Ransom
was critical and then some.

Agrarian ontologists
make leading formal apologists.

Not Him, But the Wind

D. H. Lawrence
had an abhorrence

for the beastly bourgeoisie.
He had his tea in a tree.

The History of Modern Art

Frank O'Hara
was known to wear a

spattered smock when
visiting Pollock, Jackson.

The Fragments

Sappho
was boffo

for Demeter,
dimeter.

The Making of Parisians

Gertrude Stein,
who resembled the number nine,

or eight with a slight remainder,
was more village than 'village explainer.'

My 7yo son just wrote a poem in 1st grade that I realize works as a clerihew:

Penguin

A penguin rides.
He slides and slides
in a real fast motion.
When he is done with that he dives back into the ocean.

History corner:
Guerilla warrior Francis Marion
Believed in harryin'
The British troops, who marched in columns and formed up in a box.
That ol' Swamp Fox!

Philip Trent
Was another product of E.C. Bentley’s creative bent.
A fictional sleuth, he appeared first in a case called his last.*
“Trent’s Last Case” was a botch—like this couplet. Alas!

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent's_Last_Case

Amy Winehouse sings about rehab
While fighting emphyzema and taking a drag
She has hair piled high on her head
Will it fit in the coffin after she's dead?

Bill O'Reilly
Speaks very slyly
He says there's "no-spin" on his "Factor"
But maybe he's just a character actor

Stephen Colbert
Is so balanced and fair
He's a comedian too
But his truthiness shines through

Last name Blanchett, first name Cate,
Wins awards at an alarming rate,
Recognized for playing good Queen Bess,
But as Dylan, she played a man the best.

Mike Myers,
Seldom tires,
Though no one loved his guru -- they called it "drek,"
He'll always be Wayne, and Austin, and the voice of Shrek,

Sigmund Freud,
I try to avoid,
Who knows what he'd find,
In my unconscious mind?

Johnny Rotten,
Not forgotten.
Loved to shock
With his punk rock.

Elton John,
Performs on and on
In the Las Vegas night.
He was once Reg Dwight.

Elvis Costello,
A wonderful fellow.
Now under the thrall,
Of Diana Krall.

Stephen King,
Keeps on writing.
Each volume as good as the last.
I only wish I could read that fast.

Franz Ferdinand
Is the name of a band.
Wherever they play, though,
They avoid Sarajevo.

The actor Vern Troyer,
Hired a lawyer.
Mini-Me didn't want people to screen,
A home-made tape that some called obscene.

Michael Caine
A famous name
The less-than-fickle might
Call him Maurice Micklewhite

Jack Black
Has the knack
For comedy and song
He kills with every performance. Just ask King Kong.

Rupert Murdoch started in papers,
Had all sorts of media capers.
Through it all, he stayed diurnal.
Ended up with The Wall Street Journal.

If you're fighting Mike Tyson,
You might want to think twice when,
He stops boxing your ear
And instead puts his teeth near.

Tyra Banks
Gives Oprah thanks
For being a talk-show inspiration.
(She prefers Martha's style of decoration.)

Mamma Mia! Meryl Streep
Is making an artistic leap.
She does accents. She's sure got the voice.
Remember her in Sophie's Choice?

Henry Fielding wrote Tom Jones
To help him pay his student loans.
That's not true, but research is speedier
When you cut and paste from Wikipedia.

Edward Bernays
Discovered the ways
Of Subconscious persuasion
Which made him the father of mass manipulation.

George Carlin
Wasn't everyone's darlin'
Seven words you can't say on TV
Not mentionable here, but one of them refers to pee.

What can we say about Manny Ramirez?
A swift smile and bat but not as swift as his temper is --
It's no longer uncanny
that he'll, well, always "be Manny"...

William S. Burroughs
Had a brow filled with wrinkles and furrows
(Which were probably exacerbated, of course,
By his addiction to horse).

My 10 year old son wrote this one about himself:

Henry Nee
Just got a Wii
If he had his way
He would play all day!

Steven Hawking
Has a unique style of talking
To his chair he's confined
With the whole universe in his mind

Tim Berners-Lee
Invented HTTP
Thus the world wide web was born
For Nigerian Diplomats and porn

Julia Child - America’s pioneer TV queen
Of French cuisine
So smart, so funny, in sophisticated European fashion
She transformed our country bumpkin culinary passion.

Oh seer of the heavens, ye aging Hubble
Your murky lens at first gave trouble
But corrected sight showed star light cast
On ancient worlds, the first big blast.

Why must our Hubble be retired?
Its enlightening vision has not expired
Rather, tow it to the International Space Station
And point it toward the future, the pride of a nation.

Why must our Hubble be retired?
Its enlightening vision has not expired
Rather, tow it to the International Space Station
And point it toward the future, the pride of Earth nation.

Starship USS Enterprise, flag ship supreme
500 years hence, it’s still only a dream
But dreamers are searchers, wandering far in the night
Starfleet seekers, explorers discover, excite.

Make it so, commanded Captain Jean Luc Picard
Acceleration warp speed, take her port side hard
We’ll blast past the Romulans with our Enterprise technology
And victor over Klingons with superior human psychology.

Franco Majok
Is a quiet guy. His name won't shock.
He's just one man
Helping his village in South Sudan.

Anakin Skywalker
Became Vader (breathy talker)
Serves as Palpatine's murderous wraith
And is disturbed by your lack of faith

Elliott Ness
Was inclined to obsess
If he had had Ritilin
Capone's crimes would seem piddlin'

A couple of science ones, in honor of (but NOT about!) Mr. Improbable:

Alfred Russell Wallace
Will in this fact hopefully take solace:
No scientific principle has caused its discoverer so much in-grave revolution
As the theory of evolution.

Thomas Edison
Invented a type of electricity that we have mostly had to jettison.
The clear advantages of direct over alternating current
Weren't.

Steven Pinker
Is a coiffer, not a thinker.
His theories have many people debating their spuriousness
But his hair inspires others with its luxuriousness.

Man, these are hard... I'm going to go do some actual journalism and come back later.

Diva Celine Dion,
Her heart goes on and on.
The Las Vegas show is done,
But her songs hit number one.

Quarterback Tom Brady
Romances a fancy lady.
Leading the Patriots on the field,
The offensive line is his shield.

Jane Austen
Wielded a witty pen.
Her Mr. Darcy had too much pride,
But his love for Miss Bennett never died.

Piano man Billy Joel
Knows a lot about soul.
When his fingers caress the keys,
The crowd admires his expertise.

Edmund C Bentley
Wrote intently,
But would now be anonymous
Were it not for the verse form for which his middle name is eponymous.

Spain: known for flamenco and bullfighting,
It is the sunnier sibling
To the perennial northern winners of soccer competitions
But now it is home to the 2008 Euro Cup Champions!

Kevin Garnett: all intensity and muscle
He’s really good friends with Bill Russell,
He played really well in Game Six
So we got to celebrate a championship with kicks!

Poor Big Papi
He is none too happy
His left wrist is broke
Causing the Red Sox to choke

the Math Department:
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Didn't exactly bring down the house
When he announced his Prime Number Theorem.
Maybe they just couldn't hear 'im?

Thoughtful host Leonhard Euler
Poured tea for his guest from off the boiler.
"I guess I'll solve the Konigsberg bridges,
But first, let's see what's in the fridges."

Elizabeth of England ruled merrily as queen
She sunk the Spanish armada - a brutal maritime scene
Like father, like daughter, she cut off the head
Of her own cousin Mary - a traitor, she said.

Elizabeth was born of King Henry the Eighth
And defended the right to new Protestant faith
Out Catholics! Out papists! Her policies sought
To keep England from Mary - a Catholic, a Scot.

When Moses reached the Promised Land
He cried – Lord, You done dealt me a bitter hand
These Jews are tired, cranky, hot
But Lord, they is the best we got!

Georg Simon Ohm
Studied physics in his Bavarian home
But after much resistance, he just couldn't fight it
And wrote "Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet "

Moon explorer Neil Armstrong
Got his "one step for man" quote wrong.
He came in peace for all Mankind
And left that little plaque behind.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
Went for a little walk in the park.
Meri said, "Now Bill, we'll only be away a
Couple of hours. We won't need Sacagawea."

The girl from E.T., a famous face,
At school she loved to sketch and trace.
She looked in the mirror, copied what she saw,
And said: "Look! I Drew Barrymore!"

Unhappy Eeyore
Is glum to the core.
A donkey sad and blue,
His chum is Winnie the Pooh.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Did good works heartfelt
But her greatest decision
Was to point out that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

Young Luke Russert
Performed admirably despite how he was hurt
If his behavior in the long term matches that in the short
We'll see him in the big leagues — the White House or Supreme Court

Mohandas K
Taught India to peacefully disobey
But his long forceful speeches in Hindi
Were Gandhi with the Windy

Never count out tycoon The Donald, who like Midas of old
Made millions and millions, piled up mountains of gold
Plunged down the money slope, climbed back up with Apprentice TV
It’s just business, Mr. Trump – but can’t you give some to me?

Alternating weeks

Henry Hook
Simplicity just cannot brook.
All alone, he secretly mocks
The tameness of Rathvon and Fox.

Frank Gilbreth
Studied time and motion to death
Portrayed by Clifton Webb as somewhat of a prig
His painstaking work gave us the therblig

Abigail Adams
Wrote, "John, remember the ladies, both misses and madams."
The ladies would have made strides too numerous to mention,
If he'd paid attention.

Adam Sandler
Is usually a good comedy handler
But "You Don't Mess With The Zohan"
Is about as entertaining as Lindsay Lohan

Dave Brubeck
What dexterity—his fingers on an eternal trek
A man who walks the streets of Leipzig with Bach
And whose wondrous measures you could never unlock

Erik Satie
A man who wanted to be
Wandering the Parisian streets
And playing tricks upon the sheets

Leonard Bernstein
Had talents that surely did shine
His conducting and composing formed an artistic alliance
But he's probably best known from that line in that song by "They Might Be Giants"

Cathy loves to belly dance
in flowing skirt or harem pants
with a shimmie in her hips
and a smile upon her lips

Marcel Proust
adored being goosed.
For this purpose he kept a chauffeur,
who was otherwise rather a loafer.

Aleister Crowley
in his later years turned fairly jowly.
There was a great deal of marrow in
his bones, and also heroin.

Eleanor of Aquitaine
was once with a lackwit ta'en.
He was flabby and wore flashes on his socks,
but hung like an ox!

Benjamin Britten,
once shy, was twice bitten:
First by a gentleman climbing the stairs,
next by Peter Pears.

Havelock Ellis
had little enough to tell us.
His catalogue of humanity's inversions
had long since been discovered by the Persians.

Benjamin Disraeli
Excelled upon the ukulele.
His perorations carried with them something of Scheherazade's tone.
Sucks to Gladstone.

Jane Austen
Never lived in Boston.
She was feeling rather shabby
When she wrote Northanger Abbey.

Charles Dickens
Abominated kittens.
He became popular with all nations
After writing Great Expectations.

Joe Orton
Was never too shy to go courtin'.
He spent some time in the slammer
Then got bludgeoned with a hammer.

I should be sleeping, but I had to get these down:

Run, run, Forrest Gump -
His braces break, see him jump!
He never complained when his life was altered;
His love for Jenny never faltered.

Cantankerous Lieutenant Dan -
Death in battle was the plan.
Though at Forrest Gump you screamed,
Life turned out better than you'd dreamed.

Forrest Gump couldn't save Bubba, his beloved friend,
But he kept his shrimpboat promise 'til the end.
To Bubba's family, Gump brought the check -
Bubba's mama fainted on the deck.

Henry David Thoreau
gave old Emerson a blow.
When Waldo visited his cell
Henry remarked, "You should be here as well!"

Have been thinking about this contest and trying to come up with one. And then, last night, we got the call we've been hoping wouldn't come.

Blanche Willey, a.k.a. Aunt Sis
Gone to God, we'll sorely miss
No longer hurting, no more fears
Leaves broken hearts, lots of tears

Robin says: Oh, Penny, I'm sorry for your loss!

Serena said to Venus
Nothing will come between us
Let's just go out and have some fun.
She lost two sets to none.

Hugh Laurie
Is destined for television glory.
His character may love to gripe and grouse,
But if you're dying, there's no better doctor than House.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Pride of Scottish soil.
He became famous in homes
All over England when he created Sherlock Holmes.

Benjamin Franklin
Had a bad case of gout which left him ranklin'.
His favorite dish was baked scrod
And he won fame by inventing the lightning rod.

Albert Einstein
Spoke very slowly until he was nine.
His parents thought he was retarded
But in the end he was just guarded.

Josef Stalin
Created a cult of personality so that people thought he was ballin’
But the politicide of the Great Purge
Only made the death toll surge.

Vincent Van Gogh—
His brother Theo lent him dough
Even after he cut off his own ear
Which Gauguin thought was quite queer.

Maria von Trapp
Was late for mass and shouted, “Oh crap!”
She became a governess—taught the children song
And was married to the Captain before very long.

Henry the Eighth
Had a lot of faith
In his ability to get women in bed
Before they were even wed.

Britney Spears
Must be embarrassed as the public sneers
Because she’s a total mess
With nothing under that dress.

Jan Vermeer
Put a pearl earring in her ear
This girl of worldwide fame is still a mystery
As we wonder about her history.

Nikolai Tesla
Was a pro wrestla
Then got a degree in the sciences
And built home appliances

Jayson Blair, perhaps forgettably,
Made decisions regrettably.
Blamed his editors and society
For his lack of propriety.

Bob Dylan, praised as genius,
Is from the media abstemious
And his adherents are lenient
When his rhymes are just convenient.

Antonín Dvořák
At one point an Iowan Slovak
In 1893 unfurled
His Symphony #9 "From the New World"

I'm a Star Trek freak
A Sex and the City geek
French Chef fanatic
After reading all my clerihews, my daughter thinks my behavior is erratic!

Oh me, oh my
It's the Fourth of July
Better take
A clerihew break.

Clerihew poems keep
me from sleep
Quit rhyming, I say
On this Independence Day.

Cher
Singer extraordinaire
Her voice
Top choice.

Pavarotti
Probably ate too much biscotti
But his music, his enormous gift of song...
With a talent like that, he could do no wrong.

Traditional American folk song - a clerihew - who knew?

Have you heard the story of sweet Betsy from Pike?
Who crossed the wide prairie with her husband Ike
With two yoke of cattle and one spotted hog
A tall Shanghai rooster and old yeller dog.

Inscrutable gymnast, mysterious Nadia Comenich
Made balance beam look like a walk on the beach.
Uneven bars, tumbling - with athletic genius galore
She vaulted her horse, earning another perfect gymnastic score.

This year we're missing Lance
In the Tour de France
I suppose we could take a hike
But life's better on a bike.

Suggestion:

Instead of "curing"
Alan Turing
They should have left his record clean
And let him develop the Turing Machine.

Christina Aguilera
Would never wear a
Herringbone suit.
(Nor would a prostitute.)

Abraham Lincoln
Didn’t do a lot of thinkin’
On the spot
After he was shot.

Roger Federer
Was better—er,
Wait, that’s not right.
’Twas Rapha’s night.

David Sedaris
Wasted April in Paris
Nibbling on brioche
On La Rive Gauche.

Elizabeth Bishop
buttered the fish up
with homage and versification--
and herbed garlic, post-publication.

Marianne Moore
kept a voluminous store
of quotes that she dug in
case she needed something to plug in.

Phillip K. Dick
His mind was marvelously sick
In strange new worlds he dove in deep
And revealed who dreams of electric sheep

Jeffrey Toobin
Got an Emmy for covering that little Cuban
Sometimes thinks jurisprudence a goner
And worships Sandra Day O'Connor

(thanks to Wally)

Matt Groening
Created a show which was fresh, clever, and, above all, entertaining.
I hoped the Groening/entertaining rhyme would be surprising and original enough to warrant a spot in the top five, but as it happens (Latin: ut accidit),
The Simpsons already did it.

The awful thing about Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Is how quickly one tires
Of his reliance on cheekbones , for instance-
Or the dramatic gaze into the middle distance

Speaking of poems, have you seen this funny story? http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2008/07/07/wash_judge_tells_verbose_lawyer_to_make_it_snappy/

Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, Sir Edward de Vere
Was a master of prose, poems and drama we hear.
But, as nobility, he could not relax, sir,
'Til his oeuvre was thought written by grain merchant Shaxper.

Joyce Carol Oates
I hate to boast
but she's quite prolific. She writes by the handful.
She wrote all of the above poems, for example.

Ode to Michael Jackson
He used to be black, son
His moonwalk: amazing, toe to heel
Who knew Neverland was real?