Jewish Rhyme Bible

Our Bad Poetry Contest is getting close to the end, with 3 potential winners out of over 100 entries so far. As the one who’s supposed to sort through all of these potential Joyce Kilmers, I’ve begun taking a few sneak peeks. Come on, try to hate me — I couldn’t help myself. There’s just so much good badness out there.

And I shrieked.

And I kept shrieking.

These aren’t rules to follow when writing poetry. After as all, as everyone knows, there are no rules to writing poetry — not even bad Jewish poetry. Instead, allow me to call it Top of the Bottom: The Five Inevitable Rhymes in a Bad Jewish Poem.

1. “Haiku” and “Swine Flu”
2. “Bluish” (as in “roses are red, violets are bluish”) and “Jewish”
3. “Bris” with “miss” (as in either “Little Miss Muffett” or “oops, I missed”)
4. “Poem” and “Shalom”
5. “Kabbalah” with “Madonna,” “Hanukkah,” “yarmulke,” or any other word that loosely ends in a sound like a baby choking.

On the other hand, let me offer my favorite single line from a poem so far (“W is for ‘Wej,’ which is ‘Jew,’ back to front”) as well as Jeremy’s, which is: “I’m indecisive like Yitzhak Shamir.” Culture, people. This is culture.