Clerihew Clerihew A clerihew () is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light, or revealing something unknown or spurious about them. The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular. Bentley invented the clerihew in school and then popularized it in books. One of his best known is this (1905): A clerihew has the following properties: Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them
Clerihew by the pupils of his "alma mater", Sherborne School in England: A clerihew appreciated by chemists is cited in "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes, and regards the inventor of the thermos bottle (or Dewar flask): "Dark Sun" also features a clerihew about the German-British physicist and Soviet nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs: In 1983, "Games" magazine ran a contest titled "Do You Clerihew?" The winning entry was: The clerihew form has also occasionally been used for non-biographical verses. Bentley opened his 1905 "Biography for Beginners" with an example, entitled "Introductory Remarks", on the theme of biography itself: The third edition of