National Limerick Day is on Wednesday, May 12, 2027, and it falls on May 12 every year. It celebrates the five-line comic poem with a bouncy rhythm and a punchy last line. The date honors Edward Lear, the English writer and artist who made limericks famous.
When Is National Limerick Day?
It’s always May 12, Lear’s birthday. He was born in 1812 in Holloway, then a suburb of London. The day is unofficial, but it’s popular with teachers, librarians and poetry fans.
Who Was Edward Lear?
Lear was the 20th of 21 children, the Poetry Foundation notes. He first came across the limerick form in a joke book around 1822.
In 1846, he published A Book of Nonsense under the pen name “Derry down Derry.” An expanded edition under his own name followed in 1861. He later wrote “The Owl and the Pussy-cat,” which appeared in Nonsense Songs in 1870.
Lear really wanted to be known as a painter. He worked as a landscape artist, starting in Rome in 1837, and called himself a “dirty landscape painter.” He saw nonsense verse mainly as fun and a source of income. He died in 1888 after settling in San Remo, Italy.
A classic Lear limerick
This one comes from Lear’s A Book of Nonsense:
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.”
Lear printed lines three and four as one line with an internal rhyme. Today they’re usually split into five lines.
What Is a Limerick?
The Poetry Foundation defines it as a light-verse form of five lines, usually in anapestic meter, rhyming AABBA. Anapestic means a “da-da-DUM” beat.
Lines one, two and five are longer and rhyme. Lines three and four are shorter and rhyme with each other. The last line usually delivers the joke or twist.
The day celebrates wordplay that anyone can try. A limerick is short enough to write on a napkin and silly enough to share.
Limericks are also a great teaching tool. Writing one helps students hear rhythm and rhyme, count syllables and practice timing a punch line. Lear’s own were for children, so they’re a natural fit for classrooms.
How to Celebrate National Limerick Day
- Write your own: start with “There once was a…” and a name or place that’s easy to rhyme.
- Read Lear aloud: A Book of Nonsense is in the public domain and free online.
- Hold a classroom contest: students write limericks about a pet, a teacher or the school lunch.
- Illustrate one: Lear drew his own silly pictures; draw yours too.
- Start a limerick chain: one person writes each line, passing the paper around.
- Read “The Owl and the Pussy-cat”: it’s one of Lear’s best-loved poems for kids, about two animals who sail away in a pea-green boat.
- Use a rhyming dictionary: it helps when you get stuck on line five.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you write a limerick?
Write five lines rhyming AABBA. Make lines 1, 2 and 5 about eight or nine syllables, and lines 3 and 4 about five or six. Save the joke for the end.
Did Edward Lear invent the limerick?
No. He found the form in an earlier joke book, but his 1846 collection made it hugely popular.
Why is it called a limerick?
The name likely refers to Limerick, Ireland, but nobody knows exactly how the form got it.