Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised by the overwhelming response to the Star Tribune's limerick contest, held in celebration of National Poetry Month in April.
After all, during a limerick craze in the early 20th century, newspapers in the United States and Great Britain held similar contests and were inundated with millions of poems from readers, as well as complaints that some editors didn't read all the entries but picked winners at random.
According to British limerick historian Doug Harris, prizes back then were pretty nice, like 2 pounds a week for life, or even a house. We offered only a humble roll of toilet paper as a prize in our contest.
Still, the entries poured in from readers, many of whom were looking for something to do while stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic. We got about 4,000 poems in all. And, yes, we read every one.
That's how we know that you cracked open your rhyming dictionaries and got poetic about everything from toilet paper shortages to face masks to spending too much time around the house with irritable spouses, bored kids and dogs that really didn't want to go for another walk.
In choosing the winners (one grand prize and 19 runners-up), we favored those that followed the conventional limerick structure (anapestic meter with an AABBA rhyme scheme, for you English majors). We also favored poems that were funny, witty or at least wry, ideally with a punch line landing in the last line. The limerick is traditionally a humorous poem, and we could all use a laugh.
Of course, taste in limericks is highly subjective. If you think you were robbed, you have a second chance.
The Limerick Writers' Centre in Limerick, Ireland, also sponsors an annual limerick competition. Finalists have to travel to Limerick in August to recite their poem. But the winner gets €500, which can buy a lot of toilet paper.