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Poetry with Humor
People like to laugh. And, people like rhyme and rhythm. Some of the most popular poems in English fall into the category of light verse.
If you write humorous poetry, check out Light, the journal dedicated to funny verse. It’s been around since 1992 and has a definite preference for meter and rhyme. In addition to regular submissions, the journal also accepts poems inspired by topics currently in the news (political or otherwise) for its Poems of the Week feature. The current editor, Melissa Balmain, is one of the best contemporary practitioners of light verse. IMHO, of course.
I don’t write humorous verse very often because I’m a cranky old woman. But when I do, it’s usually in very poor taste as in the example below, originally published in Yankee Pot Roast, a magazine that’s now defunct, but still an internet ghost. The poem is a sub-species of light verse: a parody, in this case, a parody of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The illustration is by Josh Abraham.
