"Who's Kidding Who": Humor in Poetry

Abstract

Why do some poems make us laugh? Is there something unique about the way humor works in poetry? While poetry may not be the medium typically associated with humor, humor is certainly abundant in poetry. As other authors have discussed at great length, humor can be a tool for expressing the distance between the individual and the group, the familiar and the strange, the personal and the political. The close readings of contemporary authors in this thesis will discuss methods and motivations of humorous poems.