In January and February 2016, I wrote limericks about nine Republican presidential candidates. It wasn’t hard to find absurdity—or villainy—among the subjects. I sent the original versions to my limerick pen pal, Eric, who was born in Arkansas and with whom I attended college in Pennsylvania. I recited the poems at two open mic events in Queens, New York: at the Queens Public Library in Forest Hills in July 2017 and at a Purim party at Q.E.D. in Astoria in…
Monthly Archives:
May 2022
Health Limericks
Posted on May 22, 2022Around 2015, I saw playwright and storyteller Lisa Huberman‘s The Prodigal Vegan—one of several incarnations of the show I’ve attended through the years. A highlight was when Lisa presented Health Limericks, a limerick book that her late grandfather Max Huberman published in 1964; he was ahead of his time! I appreciated how the limericks related to Lisa’s overall story and depiction of her family in The Prodigal Vegan. When my interest in limericks was nascent, I was awestruck by how…
My Limerick Pen Pal and His Limericks about Me
Posted on May 10, 2022I compiled There Once Was a Limerick Anthology, which will be published by Dover Publications in August, and I largely have my longtime friend and emailing pen pal, Eric Jonas, to thank for fostering my interest in limericks. Readers may recall that my last poetry book, Air to the Throne: A Poetry Chapbook about Air Guitar, also stemmed from my emailing with Eric. I began sending poems to Eric during my subway commute in 2014, and limericks were his favorites.…