Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket: The Pickler Limerick Challenge

We here at Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket are excited about how pickleball has now become fodder for poetry.

The current issue of The Pickler newsletter features a story about Doug Snelson, a South Carolina writer who has turned his poetic eye to the game he loves so much. The product is a book entitled Pickleball Poetry: Fun and Whimsical Verses to Dink About.

This may be the first – and certainly not the last – time that pickleball will be rhapsodized in rhyme. And to celebrate, the poetry division at Murmurs from the Loser’s Bracket is proud to announce … drum roll, please … The Pickler Limerick Challenge.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with limericks, think of them this way. If all the kinds of poetry were metaphorically represented by a family, the limerick would be the child who ran off to join the circus.

Some people consider limericks as low-brow doggerel unworthy of serious reflection. But, we here at Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket like limericks just fine, and we’re doing everything we can to promote them.

We’ve come up with some pickleball limericks to get you thinking. 

See? Simple. Think of an iconic pickleball situation and put it into that five-line limerick frame. Like this:

Or this.

We like them even better when the rhymes are forced.

Or …

And yes, “the man from Nantucket” sub-genre of limericking is in play, as long as you do it tastefully.

Are you inspired yet? If so, start pickleball limericking and email your best work to frank@thepickler.com

I will compile them, and at a suitable time announce the winners of The Pickler Limerick Challenge. 

I know what you’re thinking. OK, Mr. Murmurs, let’s say I participate in this poetry challenge, what’s in it for me?

Well, first of all, you’ll feel better. You will have wasted your time in a thoroughly surprising way. Don’t underestimate the joy of that.

Beyond that, we here at Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket will feature some of the best limericks submitted to The Pickler Limerick Challenge in a future newsletter. So, you could end up being borderline famous in the budding pickleball limerick community.

And we’ll have some prizes.

The first-place winner will get a copy of my modest-selling book I Dink Therefore I Am: Coming to Grips with My Pickleball Addiction.

The second place winner will get two copies of the book.

Zero-zero-rhyme.

MURMURS FROM THE LOSERS’ BRACKET

Read past editions of Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket, including:

• The Ozempic Ad
• Ball On Court? Maybe Not
• The PPA, the APP and Monty Python
• Time to Get Help at Bangers Anonymous
• “It’s an Injury Sport”
• A Pickleball Translation Guide
• What’s Your Pickleball Nickname?
• Tennis the Menace
• Is There Such a Thing as “Pickleball Torture”?
• How to Be an Effective Pickleball Snob
• All You Need Is Glove
• The Lesson McDonald’s French Fries Have for Pickleball
• Tunes on the Court
• The Poetry of Empty Courts
• “Head Targeting” Rule Change Not a Brainy Idea
• Getting Beyond “Good Game”
• Why Are Pickleball Trophies Such a Big Deal?
• Stop Messing with the ATP
• When Discussions of Rules Turn Unruly
• A Former Pickleball Addict Speaks Out
• Separating the Drinkers from the Dinkers
• Turning Every Magazine into a Pickleball Magazine
• Zen and the Art of Pickleball Maintenance
• Spirited Pickleball Poetry
• Making Pickleball Less “Devastating” to Amateurs
• Finding Romance on the Pickleball Court: Top 10 Pickup Lines
• Sign of the Times: Pickleball License Plates
• Red Light, Green Light: Playing Traffic Cop on the Court
  

Frank Cerabino is a long-time columnist for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, a pickleball addict like the rest of us, and a newly published author. Check out Frank’s newly released book, I Dink, Therefore I Am: Coming to Grips with My Pickleball Addiction (available on Amazon and a great read (or gift!) for any pickleball player), for pickleball tips and laughs!