Welcome to the something-something-th edition of the metamorphosism.com St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest.
2023 already.
Remember when 2001 was, like, the distant future?
The years just keep getting weirder, don’t they.
So weird, so fast, it’s hard to keep up.
2022 ended well, with Greta Thunberg owning that “alpha male”. Teenaged girls FTW. They have my genuine respect. I used to have 2 teenaged girls, I know whereof I speak, they are the future and don’t pick fights with them.
Used to have as in, they are all grown up now doing other stuff.
And 2023 started well, with the Mud Wizard, whom we will probably forget before the end of this contest (entries must be submitted prior to Valentine’s day i.e. February 13 is the deadline), but it was great seeing him taunt those police officers stuck in the mud, gosh.
Here are useful facts about the contest:
There is no prize this year. Don’t ask why. I can’t be arsed, I could offer a jar of marmalade or mostarda but it turns out I am very bad at sending food through the mail. ORP has a fine new album out but if you want that you have to go buy it.
So your prize is the honor of winning.
Can’t take that away from you.
Rules: As usual, entries have to be in proper limerick form.
Language: dirty words are acceptable, these are limericks after all. No hate speech. I reserve teh right to delete without explanation posts I find objectionable (including trouble-makey, complainy or trollish stuff), by posting here you agree to that. Just keep it light and fun okay? Life is short.
Make entries as a comment below this post.
Enter as often as you like.

Rules may be changed, updated, deleted, etc. without notice.

Themes: You get extra points and your chance of winning goes up if you incorporate some or all of the random themes, which also change without warning.
Themes this year include: The town of Cork. Waterfowl. A flag. Grass. A grunt. Angina. Venus. A chorus. A clock. Sailors. Something heinous. Anatomy. The planet Uranus. Baking shows. Paths to enlightenment. Microdosing vs. just dosing psychedelics. The fact that everything is interconnected and we are all manifestations of the universe experiencing itself. Spooky action at a distance and quantum entanglement.Ideas for new inventions. Alternatives to capitalism. Synonyms for “horny”. Baking competitions. Spy balloons. Good news on the environmental front. Sleeping disorders. Anatomy of the skull. Medieval music notation. Varieties of bagpipe. Yoga injuries. Varieties of oranges (the citrus fruit). Interesting animal behavior facts. Life hacks. Limericks written in the style of a famous author. Problems caused by boomers. Hopeful facts. Something happy. Bacteria in sourdough and cheese. Your personal apocalypse theory. Are cats better than dogs? The most unusual place you or someone you know has had sex. English words combining Greek and Latin roots. Bouldering. Marmalade recipes. Mud Wizards and other humorous pies in the face of the patriarchy, guillotines, pitchforks, pie recipes, Covid brain and other potential causes of future zombieism, legal and socially-acceptable sexual perversions, popular music genres, and parasites and parasitism.
More will be added so check this space.

This year’s contest is closed. Thanks to all entrants, and all visitors.
I originally planned to announce the winners earlier, but then I got busy at work, and when I got home I had to make a couscous/vegetable dish that seemed as if it would go quickly, but involved a lot of peeling and chopping so here we are.

The winners:
First of all, our sincere appreciation here at metamorphosism.com to everyone who entered. Everyone had sweet dispositions this year despite a few abrupt but unavoidable random (but mostly minor) rule changes, and there was no fighting or bickering, which was a big relief. So thank you, dudes, it was a lot of fun reading your poetry.
Before I continue: should the entry period be longer next year? It seemed to flash past this time, but maybe I’m just getting older, old people are always talking about how fast time goes by. Or maybe I was just busy (I was). Are two weeks enough? Would three weeks be better?

Ok, the winners:
First of all, to each entrant I say: we should get together for a coffee or a drink or something sometime.
Okay.
By the way, when we were in Ireland early last year, my wife and I – my wife is investigating our ancestors and we hired a genealogy butler and she claimed to have found the village my Irish ancestors came from, a few miles outside Limerick.
Where else could they possibly have come from.
It felt like in that one movie where the cities fold up only it was generations of my family history, folding up neatly on themselves.

Ok, anyway, the winners:
Oh, PS: do you think the creepy little clown drove people away? I thought it sort of captures the shadow side of the holiday, you know? But maybe that is better left to the limericks instead. I’ll try to have a more attractive graphic next year.
Ok.
Here we are:
Honorable mention goes to Cj for an autobiographical work about having Georgia on your mind. NICE TO SEE YOU AROUND AGAIN CJ!!! Have fun in Tbilisi.
Third place goes to TH who is apparently saving those worse limericks he was working on for next year’s contest. See you next year TH (if not before).
Dee gets the silver medal: three really fine limericks and hit a lot of the bonus themes as well. I was really happy to see you contributing, Dee.
Perry Iles takes first place this year, due only secondarily to one of the secret rules of this contest (“Perry always wins”) and primarily to both the quality and quantity of his entries, and his admirable ability to turn on a dime and incorporate new bonus themes as they arise, and also his occasional fucking with scansion, which made me LOL.
See you all next year. Thanks again!

Welcome to the 2017 edition of the metamorphosism.com International Limerick Contest.
Please leave your entries in the comments to this post.
Enter as often as you like.
This year’s theme: CURRENT EVENTS, plus bonus themes to be added as the contest progresses
All participants, new and seasoned veterans, are encouraged to consult the combined FAQ/rules below BECAUSE THEY CHANGE WHILE THE CONTEST IS GOING ON.
No one knows why.
FAQ/Rules

• Does it have to be a limerick? YES. This is strictly enforced, and non-limericks will not be accepted. Google proper limerick form if you are not sure.
• How do I enter? POST YOUR ENTRY OR ENTRIES in the comments to this post. Click on comment, or whatever is down there, and add a new comment.
• When is the deadline? THE DEADLINE is 14 February 2017
• Do you mean 12 midnight on the night of the 13th or midnight on the night of the 14th? And which time zone shall have seisin of jurisdiction? We have had considerably confusion in the past! NINE AM (CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME) 14 February 2017.
• Oh by the way, I have a Quince tree on Cranes Lane. I think I should get a multiplier for that fact. No, sorry, that was last year. Secret multiplier in place.
• Is there a prize? NOT YET but that might change.
• Is there a limit to how often I can enter? NO. Enter as often as you like. The more often you enter, the better your chances.
• HOWEVER ONLY ORIGINAL ENTRIES ARE ACCEPTED. PLAGIARISM RESULTS IN DISQUALIFICATION. No exceptions made for members of the First Family.
• Can entries be bawdy? YES, absolutely. These are limericks, they can be bawdy, gross, you name it. It’s not required, but it is in the nature of the genre. ALSO: this is for St. Valentine’s Day so points awarded for love/romance/sex-related poetry.
• Complaints will be deleted. There is no avenue of appeal. Decisions of the judges are final. Be nice, and have fun, and don’t take this too seriously.
• Is there anything else I can do to be deleted? Yes. Besides complaints, anything else that is not a limerick will also be deleted, especially anything remotely similar to trolling, nastiness or disagreeing with me. That will get you deleted, and whatever else our technicians here can think up. This is meant to be a fun, light-hearted, non-political past-time.
• Let’s see, what else? Oh yes.
• Bonus points are awarded for inclusion of themes listed below (No limit to how many themes you may include, the more the better):
• Last-minute addition: Scottish insults (particularly in combination with USAmerican politics..)
• Current events i.e. tacky kakistocracy, apocaplexia, alternative facts, Trump, etc etc etc think of it as catharsis.
• Use of the phrase “tacky kakistocracy” or something even better
• Utopian visions
• Musical genres (see here for ideas, thanks Carola!)
• Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, William Gibson et al
• Field dependence vs field independence
• Quantum theory
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead
• William S. Burroughs
• Funeral planning
• (More themes to come, watch this space.)

By entering you grant metamorphosism.com permission to publish your entry electronically on metamorphosism.com, in social media (including but not limited to twitter.com, facebook.com and anything else) as well as in book form, although the latter is REALLY unlikely, without compensation (this is a non-profit venture, and any possible, although unlikely, book would be, you know, for charity most likely).
AS ALWAYS, RULES ARE SUBJECT TO CONSTANT CHANGE DURING THE CONTEST, SO CHECK BACK OFTEN.

Now, get cracking.

Shot today: Valentine’s bouquet. Old Workhorse collodion, 14 seconds, f4, overcast day.

Shot today: Valentine’s bouquet, Lea’s Portrait collodion, f4, 7 seconds, overcast day.

(I named one after Beta last year and she was so happy)

In the spirit of Art’s Birthday, which today is, namely participatory and cooperative creation of art, it is a great pleasure to announce this year’s Metamorphosism International Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest.

Over the years, hundreds of brilliant limericks have seen the light of day thanks to this contest, and we are looking forward to seeing a lot this year. As always, there are rules which, as always, are subject to arbitrary change at my whim, at short notice and unannounced. The decisions of the judge will be final. There will be at least two prizes this year, maybe more. Contact me if you have a prize you’d like to donate. My email is metamorphosist@gmail.com. Two prizes have  already been donated, one by Bran, her book The Slow-Moving Person’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: A How-to for the Survival of the Unfit, and the other by me (with fine-art illustrations by Bran), namely a remaining copy of my book Little-Known Facts about Various Marine-Dwelling Animals (if I can find it in my messy studio).

The rules: (NOTE UNFAIR AND ARBITRARY RULE CHANGES MADE ON 7 FEBRUARY 2012 SUPERCEDING PREVIOUS RULE CHANGES)

• Entries must be genuine limericks. Look up what a limerick is before entering if you don’t know.
• Make entries as comments to this post.
• Include a valid email address so I can contact you if necessary. Emails are not published.
• Limericks are famous for being raunchy, so this contest is open only to people old enough to be writing raunchy limericks, even if the actual limericks you enter are not raunchy, because there is a chance you will at least be reading raunchy limericks.
• These are limericks, and the contest is for Valentine’s Day, so thematically they should include something related to love and/or sex, requited or not. Obsession, attraction, etc. are also okay.
• Deadline is February 13, 2012, because the winners will be announced with much fanfare on February 14, 2012. It is the last Valentine’s Day in the history of mankind, if the Mayans are right, so make your entries count.
• I would like to publish a volume of the best entries from past years, so by entering you are giving me permission to (possibly) publish your entry in such a volume, without remuneration (any profits will be donated to charity). Otherwise all rights remain with authors.
• Extra points: (Be sure and read this rule; it is practically impossible to win without extra credit)  Extra credit is awarded this year for references to / incorporation of the following: MARITIME DISASTERS, STRIPPERS, POLITICAL SCANDALS, AND SPERM DONATIONH.P. Lovecraft, Australian place names (especially Wollongong and Tweed Heads), esoteric philosophy, and wrestling holds. New entries following the previous, superceded rules will be DISQUALIFIED.  literary parody (especially Cormac McCarthy), obscure sciences, consequences of environmental pollution, various chimera by name, Japanese Noh theater actors, anthropological concepts, functional recipes, and types of knots. And the apocalypse.
• You may enter as often as you like. Multiple entries are encouraged, and improve your chances of winning.
• You are encouraged to spread the word about this contest.
• Have a nice day.
• PS on your way out, why not go watch my videos on youtube? (IMPORTANT: According to my youtube stats, many of you have not been following this rule!)
• Or go take a look at the 2009 contest, which was a very good year for poetry.

(Many thanks to bran for this year’s logo!)

Winner’s will be announced on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 2011 unless I’m having some crisis or something.

Rules:

1. Be nice.
2. Entries must be a limerick.
3. This year’s themes: Jungian psychology, the recent astrological reform, Icelandic geography, monopolistic corporate imperialism and/or plutocracy.
4. Entries must be made in the comments to this post.

Things you should know, in no particular order:

This contest has been going for years, and is extremely popular. The entries are awe-inspiring. Last year some of the winners got a prize. This year, I have saved one or more of my books (Little-Known Facts) and will award it/them as a prize. I think I will get someone else to adjudicate the contest for me this year. THE DEADLINE IS  13 FEBRUARY 2010. Winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day.

RULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. That’s just the way life is. Anything else would be, like, trying to deny this fact about our existence. Here are the rules at the present moment:

1. Entries must be a limerick. Go to wikipedia.org, type “limerick” in the box, go to the entry about the poetic form, not the town, and read.
2. Or google it, or whatever you people do.
3. Limericks must include a structural misconception.
4. Extra points for composers, musical forms, and Mahatma Gandhi jokes.
5. Report on last year’s contest here.
6. The arbitrary structural misconception rule was throwing people off (it was that, right?) so that has been eliminated. And composers have been done before, I think. And Gandhi wasn’t really being milked for the maximum comedy there, despite the fact that he used to sleep naked with young women to test his resolve, according to Wikipedia or someplace.
7. So instead, the following rules will be in place:
8. The limericks must be, as limericks often are, about love, especially its dodgier aspects BUT however use of the word “love” will result in instant disqualification. (Gamma suggested that one, I’m so proud.)
9. Extra points will be awarded for the following: disgraced medical treatments, freshwater amoeba, character actors from the “That Guy” list of actors, skeletal bones, Irish politics, Irish writers, legal concepts, punctuation, and apocrypha.

SUBMIT ENTRIES IN THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST! Please include a valid email address (not posted) so that you can be contacted in case you win. Or don’t, whatever.

Despite attempts by me to confuse things with random rule changes, there were significantly more limericks entered in this year’s contest than in past years. They were quite classy as well, and most managed to follow the rules, even when those rules called for Latin or Icelandic, or diseases that affect rat behavior.

There were even entries entirely in Latin, and Irish. Thanks guys.

Things went kind of crazy for a while, which was nice. As Anon wrote:

I think Muireann and Trish should both be disqualified. They seem to be using this competition as a forum to air their petty grievances and are not taking the competition seriously. For example in the last 28 posts there has been no mention of a burlesque performer and only one or two references to scalpels. Some of the limericks seem to be written in an unidentified foreign language and could have any meaning. How can that be judged? They should at least be asked for a translation. Also the limericks are of poor quality and there are too many of them. There should be a cap on the number of limericks allowed and there should be more control of unruly participants.

However, since Anon was posting from the same ISP number as Muireann, I am disinclined to disqualify her at the behest of a household member who obviously bears a grudge against her. (You might want to look into that, Muireann.)

We judged this year on the basis both of quantity and quality, using a weighted algorithm and a compass. As a result, the only possible contenders for places 1, 2 and 3 are, in alphabetical order, Jann, Muireann and Trish, and it comes down to their bonus points. Toxoplasmosis gondii would normally have automatically cinched it for Jann, as that is my favorite protozoan, and the one I was hoping to elicit with the related rule change. However, the sheer quantity of Muireann’s entries won her points, as did the Icelandic. Honestly, I did not expect to see much real Icelandic, beyond references to Björk, maybe. Trish was doing well, in the running for first place, until her broadband went out, setting her back somewhat.

As a Solomonic solution, I was briefly tempted to let Tony and Ian tie for first place, but my wife said that would be a stupid thing to do.

Anyway, here are the final results.

First place: Jann (extra points for toxoplasmosis gondii, and also more of her entries stuck closer to the rules, and the youtube burlesque link)

Second place: Muireann

Third place: Trish. Sorry about your rat, Trish.

Thank you to everyone who entered. See you next year.

As far as this year’s prize goes, I am hitting the flea markets in search of trophies. I’ll mail the winners when I find some, or something similar, for mailing instructions. Or, how about you guys let me know where to send them?

PLEASE NOTE NEW, EMERGENCY, (literally) LAST-DAY RULE CHANGES BELOW!!!11!!!!

Time for the 8th (I think) annual Metamorphosism International Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest.

Enter in the comments to this post.
Winners will be announced on 14 February, 2009.
ENTER AS OFTEN AS YOU LIKE!!! But read the rules before entering! Or else!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: THERE HAS BEEN A SMALL CHANGE IN THE RULES FOR THIS YEAR’S CONTEST!!

SECOND IMPORTANT NOTICE! THERE HAS BEEN ANOTHER RULE CHANGE!

1. Poems entered must be an actual limerick. We are strict about this.
2. Entries must contain a Latin word or phrase.
3. Extra points awarded for working in one of the following: a king, a burlesque performer, an extinct or rare musical instrument, a prosthesis, NEW: an obsolete, extinct or rare musical instrument. NEW RULE CHANGE HERE: No kings, prostheses or obsolete musical instruments after all. All entries with kings, prostheses or obsolete musical instruments will be disqualified. Unusual or innovative musical instruments will still be allowed. Instead of kings, extra points will be awarded for parasitic diseases affecting the behavior of rats. Prostheses and prosthetic devices shall be replaced by surgical equipment.
4. NEW RULES (made necessary by the unfortunate flame war in the entries): entries are to include themes of general bawdiness, redeption and reconciliation. Bonus characters: famous peace activists, famous ventriloquists, escape artists. Bonus languages: Latin, Icelandic.
5. Rules subject to change without warning (changes will be posted here or in a subsequent post)

(Note: Over the years, a number of rude etc expressions have been added to the comment blacklist so if the comments refuse your entry that might be the reason. In that case, mail it to me at metamorphosist (at) gmail dot c0m and I’ll set you up.)

Feel free to search this site for past winners. Good luck.