What's the type of poem like a clarihew -- but not a clarihew?

May 5, 2019 6:17 AM

Is there a type of poem, or just a famous example, that is like an even shorter clarihew, and ends rather than begins with the proper name, and is maybe wholly alliterative?

For some reason I'm remembering/imagining the alliterative letter as H, for the famous example..

OR AM I IMAGINING ALL OF IT AAAAAAAAAAA

posted by fleacircus to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Not a double dactyl? It's not shorter, but it often scans faster.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:49 AM on May 5, 2019

Balliol rhymes?
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:23 AM on May 5, 2019

This a rather wild guess, but are you maybe half-remembering the epitaph that George Augustus Sala composed for publisher John Camden Hotten:
Hotten
Rotten
Forgotten.
posted by neroli at 8:24 AM on May 5, 2019

Response by poster: I don't think it's any of these, but I'm feeling less sure I'm remembering an actual thing.

Fake example of what I might be remembering, if we imagine that Halifax was famous for being super windy or something:

Hatboxes hie hither, hit hurricane heights. Halifax!
posted by fleacircus at 8:31 AM on May 5, 2019

Best answer: Not a clerihew for sure, but I do remember reading some short poems that took the form you mentioned, ending up with just the subject's name as the last time. Naturally, I can't recall the poems, but they took the rough (but much shorter) form of Thomas Hood's November:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

posted by scruss at 8:33 AM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Your fake Halifax example reminded me of the Burma-Shave roadside ads.

Shaving brushes / You'll soon see 'em / On the shelf / In some / Museum / Burma-Shave
posted by danceswithlight at 9:25 AM on May 5, 2019

You're not thinking of the famous palindrome?

A man
A plan
A canal
Panama!
posted by jamjam at 10:15 AM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Burma Shave and Yo, banana boy! that Panama palindrome might have figured in but I think scruss is pretty close to the target.
posted by fleacircus at 11:58 AM on May 5, 2019

It's not the Name Game, is it?

Catie, Catie, bo-batie,
Bonana-fanna fo-fatie
Fee fi mo-matie
Catie!
posted by rollick at 3:01 PM on May 5, 2019