Little Willie rhymes are light verses that pair an indifferent or cheerfully inappropriate response with a gruesome act of violence, typically in quatrain form, attributed to the poet Harry Graham. The earliest examples appeared in his 1898 collection Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes, published under the pen name Col. D. Streamer, and the genre of poetic black humor remained popular enough that The Washington Post ran a reader contest for new examples in 2011.
Facts
Place of Origin Notable ExampleRuthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes (1898) by Harry Graham 1 Defining TraitA cheerfully inappropriate response to a gruesome act of violence in quatrain form 1 Sources
1. Little Willie rhymes (Wikipedia)
Opening paragraph and Ruthless Rhymes note
published in 1898 under Graham's pen name Col. D. Streamer while he was serving in the Coldstream Guards
Origin and attribution section
published in 1898 under Graham's pen name Col. D. Streamer while he was serving in the Coldstream Guards
Opening paragraph
Little Willie rhymes are light verses including an indifferent or cheerfully inappropriate response to a gruesome act of violence in a quatrain form attributed to Harry Graham (1874-1936).
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