Nonsense verse facts for kids

Nonsense verse is a fun type of nonsense literature. It often uses strong rhythms and rhymes. It's usually silly and funny, playing with words and ideas in unexpected ways.

Limericks are a very famous kind of nonsense verse. Today, they are often used just for jokes, but they started out being truly nonsensical.

Many famous writers in English are known for their nonsense verse. These include Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, and Spike Milligan.

What Makes it Nonsense?

Nonsense verse can be silly in different ways.

Silly Meanings

Sometimes, the words make sense on their own, but when put together, they create a silly picture. It's like a puzzle where the pieces fit, but the picture is all mixed up!

For example, this old verse:

'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter
as he picked up his hammer and saw.

The words are normal, but a blind man can't "see," and a deaf and dumb daughter can't hear or speak. It's a funny mix-up!

Made-Up Words

Other times, nonsense verse uses words that don't have a real meaning. Writers like Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear were very good at this. These poems still follow grammar rules, so you can tell if a made-up word is a noun or a verb.

Here's the start of Lewis Carroll's famous poem Jabberwocky:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Even though you don't know what "brillig" or "slithy toves" mean, the poem still sounds like a real story!

Mixed-Up Grammar

Some nonsense verse even mixes up grammar or uses words in strange ways. John Lennon wrote a poem called "The Faulty Bagnose":

The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy
Religeorge too thee worled.
Sam fells on the waysock-side
And somforbe on a gurled,
With all her faulty bagnose!

Words like "awoy" sound like "away" but also "ahoy!" This makes the poem sound even more playful and confusing.

Impossible Situations

Not all nonsense verse uses strange words or grammar. Some just describe situations that are totally impossible.

For example, Edward Lear's poem The Jumblies has a clear chorus:

Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

Why are their heads green and hands blue? And how can you sail in a sieve? It doesn't make sense, and that's the point!

Here's another example from Brian P. Cleary:

One tall midget reached up high,
Touched the ground above the sky,
Tied his loafers, licked his tongue,
And told about the bee he stung.
He painted, then, an oval square
The color of the bald man's hair,
And in the painting you could hear
What's undetected by the ear.

This poem is full of things that can't happen, like a midget touching the ground above the sky or hearing a painting.

A poem sometimes linked to Christopher Isherwood is also a great example of impossible situations:

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

This poem sounds serious, but it describes a very silly situation with birds and bears!

More modern examples of nonsense verse include Vogon poetry from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the 1972 song 'Prisencolinensinainciusol' by Adriano Celentano.

History and Examples

Nonsense verse has been around for a long time.

Old Riddles

Even old Anglo-Saxon riddles from long ago can feel like nonsense verse. They often describe something in a confusing way, and you have to guess what it is.

Here's an example:

A moth ate some words – it seemed to me
strangely weird – when I heard this wonder:
that it had devoured – the song of a man.
A thief in the thickness of night – gloriously mouthed
the source of knowledge – but the thief was not
the least bit wiser – for the words in his mouth.

Can you guess what the moth ate? (It's a book!)

Opposites and Contradictions

Some nonsense poems use lots of opposite words or ideas to create a funny, impossible scene.

Read this poem:

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
Back-to-back they faced one another,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
One was blind and the other couldn't see,
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"
A paralyzed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind men in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine-inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And went to arrest the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
Ask the blind man – he saw it too!

This poem is full of impossible things, like dead men fighting or a dry ditch drowning people!

Nursery Rhymes

Many nursery rhymes are also a type of nonsense verse. If you don't know their history, they can seem very silly. Some people think that Mother Goose rhymes were secretly making fun of rich people, but they just sounded like innocent rhymes.

A famous example is:

Hey diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

A cow jumping over the moon and a dish running away with a spoon are definitely nonsense!

Nonsense Verse Around the World

Nonsense verse isn't just in English! Many other languages have their own famous nonsense poets.

In Russia, writers like Daniil Kharms and Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (writing as Kozma Prutkov) created nonsense poems. In France, you can find nonsense verse by Charles Cros and Robert Desnos.

In Bengali (an Indian language), Sukumar Ray is a pioneer of nonsense poems and is very famous for children's literature. His book Abol Tabol is a well-known collection of nonsense verse.

In Germany, Christian Morgenstern and Ringelnatz are popular nonsense writers. Morgenstern's poem Das Nasobēm describes an imaginary creature, much like the Jabberwock:

Another funny German saying by F. W. Bernstein is:

Julio Cortázar, a writer from Argentina, was also known for playing with language in his works.