American Humor Poem Types

The paradelle, as the name suggests, is a parody of the villanelle (and formal poetry in general), created by poet laureate Billy Collins. Despite its introduction as a joke, the form ended up being picked up by multiple writers afterward and now paradoxically joins the list of formal poems out in the wild.

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The nasher couplet is a light verse form envisioned by Ogden Nash, from whom they borrow their name. The form relies entirely upon humorous couplets of undefined length and meter, existing mostly as a “for fun” form like the much older limerick.

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