Limericks

The limerick is a humorous poem that contains only five lines.  Light hearted in nature, it's a handful of cleverly chosen words set to an upbeat rhythm and geared to make the reader chuckle. A limerick is defined by it's bawdy nature and it's specific rhyming structure. The rhyme scheme of a limerick is AABBA. Lines 1, 2 and 5 must rhyme, with 7 to 11 syllables each, and lines 3 and 4 must rhyme, with 5 to 7 syllables each.
The history of the limerick dates back to the 13th century, when the poem's form first appeared in a Latin prayer written by Thomas Aquinas. William Shakespeare also made use of the limerick in writing King Lear, Othello and The Tempest. In 1776, the limerick became a popular style of writing children's books when Mother Goose published her book of nursery rhymes, Mother Goose's Melody.
The limerick attained widespread popularity in Ireland because of the country's strong focus on storytelling. Local taverns and pubs would host limerick competitions that encouraged patrons to create bawdy lines to make other patrons laugh. Residents of the Irish City of Limerick began to call the poems limericks and it stuck.