A Clerihew is a comic verse consisting of two couplets and a specific rhyming scheme, aabb invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) at the age of 16. The poem is about/deals with a person/character within the first rhyme. In most cases, the first line names a person, and the second line ends with something that rhymes with the name of the person.

One of the most remembered Clerihew from Bentley's collection is:

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

Example #1

Garfield the cat
On his rear he sat.
Eating lasagna galore
All about the decor.

Copyright © 2000 James & Marie Summers

Example #2

The Road Runner
always almost a goner;
when attacked in manner dread,
Wile E. suffers intended fate instead ....
 
Copyright © 2004 Alan McAlpine Douglas
 

Example #3

Star Trek's frowning Klingon Worf 
challenges a squeamish metamorph 
to eating a wormlike gagh dinner;
Worf of course was the winner!
 
Copyright © 2004 Diana Dalton
 

Example #4

Corporal Klinger,
M.A.S.H.'s best ringer
in dress, heels and sneer,
won "Kook of the Year."
 
Copyright © 2004 James Dean Chase