There once was a man from Nantucket

"There once was a man from Nantucket" is the opening line for many limericks and is among the most familiar opening lines in poetry. This literary trope can be attributed to the popularity of the limerick genre and the way the name of the island of Nantucket lends itself easily to humorous rhymes and puns.

Both obscene and chaste versions of the poem exist. In the countless vulgar versions, the mythopoeic protagonist is typically portrayed as a well-endowed, hypersexualized persona.

History

One of the earliest known versions of the Man from Nantucket motif is this rendition from 1924:

There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

This version—in which "Nantucket" can be jokingly read as "Nan took it (i.e., the bucket)"—was so popular that the newspapers Princeton Tiger Magazine and The Chicago Tribune each started a "Limerick Challenge" for readers to submit sequels. The first in the series, as it appeared in the Tribune and Pawtucket Times, was this:

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,

The man and the girl with the bucket;

And he said to the man,

He was welcome to Nan,

But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.

The New York Exchange followed up with this:

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,

Where he still held the cash as an asset,

But Nan and the man

Stole the money and ran,

And as for the bucket, Manhasset.

Obscene versions

The many ribald versions of the limerick are the basis for its lasting popularity. Many variations on the theme are possible because of the ease of rhyming Nantucket with some vulgar words. The following variation is among the best known.

There once was a man from Nantucket

Whose dick was so long he could suck it.

While wiping his chin,

He said with a grin,

"If my ear were a cunt, I could fuck it."

Popular culture

The poem has become a staple of American humor, both as an iconic example of dirty poetry and as a joking example of fine art, whose vulgarity and simple form provides an unexpected contrast to an expected refinement.

A few examples: In Woody Allen's 1966 film What's Up, Tiger Lily?, the protagonist Phil Moskowitz reads the opening line of "ancient erotic poetry": "There once was a man from Nantucket". In Steven Soderbergh's 2002 film Solaris, the male protagonist tries to impress his girlfriend with his knowledge of poet Dylan Thomas, but when she asks him for his favorite poem he comes up with "the one he is most famous for, which starts, um, 'There once was a young man from Nantucket'". In the pilot episode for the television series Babylon 5, an alien ambassador mentions having heard it as an example of an Earth poem.

References

• Yesterday's Island "Limerick Challenge"
• Little Blue Book, number 1018. "A Book of Humerous Limericks". pp. 40–41