#WaterPoemProject: Day 12, Debbie Levy

Welcome back to my month-long #WaterPoemProject, Poetry Friday friends.It’s Day 12. We have been writing in response to prompts about water for nearly two weeks!If you’re new to this project, please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.For #WaterPoemProject regulars who are new to Poetry Friday, each week a kidlit blogger hosts poetry-related links and posts from around the kidlitosphere. This week’s host is Heidi Mordhorst, who invites us to Shelter in Poetry at her blog, My Juicy Little Universe. (Thanks, Heidi!) Still confused? Renée LaTulippe has a great post about our weekly poetry party.Who is joining us to share a writing prompt about water today? It's poet, children's book author, and RBG biographer Debbie Levy!Debbie's poetry prompt is: Jump on In -- Let’s Write Limericks!When I observe animals at home in their environments, whether watery or otherwise, I’m always struck—and usually awed—by the things they do, the structure of their bodies, the sounds of their voices. But you know what else strikes me? How they can make me smile and laugh, especially if I imagine a funny story to go along with what I’m seeing or hearing.So for my turn on the #WaterPoemProject, I’d like to inspire you to smile or laugh! To do that, I’m sharing two videos that I’ve taken of critters in the Chesapeake Bay, near where I live, and instructions on how to write a poem known as a limerick.In poetry, there’s nothing quite as silly as a limerick. Limericks are also known as “nonsense” poems. Here’s an example of a limerick by Edward Lear, an English poet of the nineteenth century who was a master of the form:There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, “It is just as I feared!Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!”You see? Nonsense. Here’s another:There was a Young Lady of Norway,Who casually sat in a doorway;When the door squeezed her flat,She exclaimed, “What of that?”This courageous Young Lady of Norway.The easiest way to understand the “rules” of a limerick is to read one or two of them aloud and notice where the rhymes fall and what the rhythm of the poem is. What you’ll see is that:

• A limerick has five lines. Lines 1 and 2 rhyme with each other. Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other. Line 5 rhymes with 1 and 2.
• Lines 1, 2, and 5 have 9 or 10 syllables, or beats.
• Lines 3 and 4 have 5 or 6 syllables, or beats.
• The rhythm of a limerick goes like this:

da – DA – da – da – DA – da – da – DAda – DA – da – da – DA – da – da - DAda – DA – da – da – DA da – DA – da – da – DA da – DA – da – da – DA – da – da - DASay the da-das out loud, and you’ll get it.Okay, here goes. Check out the videos below. One shows a large school of fish. The other is a small school of rays. Let your imagination run free and funny, and think up some ridiculous story to go with what you see. You can focus just on the school of fish, or just on the rays, or put them together. The sillier the better! Then write that story in limerick form. As you’re writing, it may help you to make lists of words that rhyme in the margins of your paper.Here’s a limerick I came up with—this was something I worked on last week, and the process of thinking and writing brightened my day:There once was a fish in a poolWho wanted to swim in a schoolHe jumped into the bayWhere he found a stingrayAnd decided to stay home from school.Have fun! And in case you’re curious about the videos: Every fall in the Chesapeake Bay, giant schools of menhaden can be seen swirling the surface of the water. Often they’re being chased by larger fish, such as striped bass and bluefish, trying to fatten up before the cold winter comes. These giant schools are awesome sights to see.The second video shows cownose rays (not stingrays) in a river that feeds into the Chesapeake. These schools of cownose rays show up all summer in the Chesapeake region. I love them!***Your task is to jump into a water-themed limerick before the end of the day tomorrow, Friday, April 3, 2020.If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.Debbie Levy’s most recent book is the graphic novel-style biography Becoming RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Journey to Justice (Simon & Schuster 2019). It has no limericks in it, but it does include a couple of RBG’s favorite silly poems when she was a young girl. You can visit Debbie at www.debbielevybooks.com, connect on Twitter at @debbielevybooks, on Instagram at debbielevybooks, and on Facebook.***#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:Project IntroductionFAQPrompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of WaterPrompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found HaikuPrompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow FibonacciPrompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of WaterPrompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a WavePrompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water MemoryPrompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day OppositesPrompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly SolagePrompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery HomePrompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen FogPrompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a LimerickPrompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water SkinnyPrompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of WaterPrompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water WordplayPrompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of WaterPrompt 18: Mike Grosso, Waterplay!Prompt 19: R. L. Toalson, Wishing WellPrompt 20: Margarita Engle, Ode to the ShorePrompt 21: Faye McCray, Poem in a BubblePrompt 22: Meg Eden, Surprising ConnectionsPlease support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.