McGovern's poems sometimes turn to humor and below I feature three examples of his clerihew.
From Wikpedia (edited): A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem --
the first line gives the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person who at whom fun will be poked.
The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular.
Because none of McGovern's clerihew feature women, I insert one of my own,
about unheralded 20th century codebreaker Elizabeth Smith,
subject of The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone (Harper Collins, 2017).
Elizabeth Smith,
poet, technologist,
code breaker, Nazi exposer--
and, alas, no one knows her.
And, from Iggy McGovern:
Albert Einsteinliked to opine:
"It's not very nice
Of God to play dice."
Max Planck
is the man to thank
for the mysterious phantom
that is the quantum.
Paul Dirac
took a different tack.
People thought he was mad as a hatter
with his prediction of antimatter.
As with McGovern's previous work (information here), The Eyes of Isaac Newton is good poetry with the added benefit of scientific insights. Read and enjoy!
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