A McWhirtle is a light verse

Light poetry

Light poetry, or light verse, is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Poems considered "light" are usually brief, and can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play, including puns, adventurous rhyme and heavy alliteration...

 form similar to a double dactyl

Double dactyl

A dactyl is a term used in formal English poetry to describe a trisyllablic metrical foot made up of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. Matador, realize, cereal and limerick as well as the word poetry itself are examples of words that are themselves dactyls...

, invented in 1989 by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 Bruce Newling. McWhirtles share essentially the same form as double dactyls, but without the strict requirements, making them easier to write. Specifically:

• McWhirtles do not require a nonsense
  Nonsense
  Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous...
  
   phrase (e.g., "Higgledy piggledy") on the first line.
• There is no requirement for a double-dactylic word in the second stanza
  Stanza
  In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
  
  .
• There is an extra unstressed syllable
  Syllable
  A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
  
   added to the beginning of the first line of each stanza.
• Although the meter
  Meter (poetry)
  In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
  
   is the same as in a double-dactyl, syllables may move from the end of one line to the beginning of the next for readability.

The looser form allows poets additional freedom to include additional rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

s and other stylistic device

Stylistic device

In literature and writing, Stylistic Elements are the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written.- Figurative language :...

s.

The form is named after the fictional protagonist in an early example by Newling, included with his original written description of the form, dated August 12, 1989; but his first McWhirtle, in which his friend "Skip" Ungar is the protagonist and which also appeared with his original description, was:

The Piano Player

I read in the papers

That Harry F. Ungar

Performs in a night spot

Near soigne Scotch Plains,

Caressing the keyboard

While affluent yuppies

Are eating and drinking

Their capital gains.

The first published description of the McWhirtle, with examples, was in E.O. Parrott, ed., How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry, London: Viking, 1990, pp. 197-200; and the verse form was also described in Anne H. Soukhanov, Word Watch - The Stories Behind the Words of Our Lives, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995, pp. 388-89.

An example by American poet Kenn Nesbitt

Kenn Nesbitt

Kenn Aylward Nesbitt is a children's poet He has written a number of collections of children's poetry, listed below.He was born on February 20, 1962 in Berkeley, California. He grew up in Fresno and San Diego, California, United States....

:

Fernando the Fearless

We're truly in awe of

Fernando the Fearless

who needed no net

for the flying trapeze.

Alas, what a shame

it's surprisingly difficult

catching a bar

in the midst of a sneeze.