Comment Poems: Limerick Edition

Limericks are a popular choice for comment poets. Sometimes they set off a chain reaction of poetic replies (presumably as more and more of us realize that writing topical limericks is a great way to avoid getting back to work). On a January 2nd Room for Debate about speeches at the inauguration of Mayor Bill de Blasio:

Well, we tried. (niobium gives us an example of monorhyme, one of the less common kinds of rhyme in poetry.) Not all of us can be as gifted as Larry Eisenberg, who has been posting limericks almost daily for years.

Some commenters appreciate Larry Eisenberg's limericks but not his politics. An op-ed arguing for an end to the corporate income tax by Boston University economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff set off this exchange:

Another news event that inspired a limerick this week was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's announcement that he will run for reelection:

And one comment poet couldn't pick just one limerick in response to skepticism about the scientific value of the Spirit of Mawson expedition, whose members had to be evacuated from the icebound ship Akademik Shokalskiy last week:

Chris Turney is a climate researcher and one of three lead scientists on the mission. The Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon, which rescued the stranded Akademik Shokalskiy passengers by helicopter, is now itself in danger of becoming trapped in sea ice.

Stay tuned for a post about how we gather data from thousands of New York Times user comments, and try to automatically identify poems and other interesting things.