Mrs. Hudson's Poetry Page: The Illustrious Client

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Welcome once again to my poetry page!

I hope each week you will read Dr. Watson’s delightful narrative and then be inspired to write a poem related to it in some way. All forms of poetry are permitted, and further down the page there is a selection you might like to consider using over the coming weeks.

This week my featured form is the jueju.

Poetry Magnum Opus gives this definition (N.B. they use “Jue Ju” but “jueju” seems to be the convention in all other sources):

Jue Ju (curtailed or frustrated verse) is one of the oldest of the Chinese patterns and in the 3rd century AD the Jue Ju was very popular. It often carried "suggestively erotic themes". It does not tell a story but attempts to create a mood.

The basic rhythmic unit of Chinese poem is the single character (zi), which is pronounced as one syllable. In English the word represented by the character might be more than one syllable. Originally the Jue Ju was composed in 5 character lines. By the Tang era, 8th century it had evolved to a 7 character pattern and became fundamental to Chinese poetry.

The Jue Ju is:

metered, 5 or 7 character or word lines. (lines should be same length)
composed of 4 lines.
often erotic.
compared to Western poetry, could be considered terse and compressed.



Here is my example poem:


“The heart and mind of a woman
Are an insoluble puzzle to a male.”
Are you sure? My peace of mind—
Sir, you have long since cracked it.



As always, this is simply something to consider for the future. Any form of poetry is welcome this week—and every week! Here are a few suggestions for you:

221B verselet, abecedarian poetry, acrostic poetry, alexandrine, beeswing, blackout poetry, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, colour poems, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, epigram, epitaph, epulaeryu, Etheree, fable, found poetry, ghazal, haiku, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, limerick, lyric poetry, mathnawī, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, quintilla, renga, riddle, rime couée, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, sonnet, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle


Please leave all your poems inspired by The Illustrious Client in the comments on this post. I look forward to seeing them!


Warm regards,

Mrs. Hudson

Comments

Limerick

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

A beauty enthralled with a beast
(Kills his women when passion has ceased).
A dish for a King
Led to vitriol’s sting,
And his horrid past now is her feast.

Birthday limerick!

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

There once was a writer named hill
Who from cradle did love ink and quill
Try as she might
She could not not write
Pen and words, her bosom friends still.

Re: Limerick

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Suitably unpleasant!

Re: Limerick

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Very neat use of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

RE: Limerick

[debriswoman]

Neatly done, nice first line in particular:-)

Re: Jue Ju: almost

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

I love hyphens,so I say it's fair game. Beautiful and sadly true.

Re: Jue Ju: almost

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Nasty man, well caught.

Re: Jue Ju: almost

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Great last line ^^"

Re: Jue Ju: almost

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Short but almost Gruneresque howl! Actually, it's a very good pun. *staggers off to recover*.

Re: Written earlier: Beguile

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Nice and haunting. You can feel the tension and bitterness. Well done.

Re: Written earlier: Beguile

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Yes, you've captured poor Kitty very well.

Re: Written earlier: Beguile

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Brilliant look at things from Miss Winter's POV. And yes, though she's clear and honest about wanting revenge, I wonder if she thought attacking Gruner was also the noble thing to do - saving other women from him.

Re: Written earlier: Beguile

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

This is just great! A whole and enthralling story in itself, as well as a fine poem.

James Damery

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

A lucent top hat
And a dark frock coat
A black silk cravat
Wound around the throat
Plus lavender spats
Clearly, a man of note.

Re: James Damery

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Nice. When I read that I wondered what Jeeves would think of the spats...

Re: James Damery

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Neatly done ^^

(Just been looking up "lucent". A hat giving off light? Was it fitted with a bulb?)

RE: James Damery

[debriswoman]

He really was very nicely turned out:-)

Your poem, Mrs H

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I fear Lent may feel like much longer than 40 days!

Re: Your poem, Mrs H

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Especially if gin is on the list of things from which she's abstaining.

Re: Your poem, Mrs H

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, my poem - I cannot manage "suggestively erotic" but "terse" does come naturally to me.

attempt jue ju-Turkish bath

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Water. Warm. Ripples break against soft flesh.
Steam. Hot. Vapour curls against world-weary flesh.
Sweat. Cool. Rivulets flow against straining flesh.
Sighs. Soft. World-weary. Straining. Flesh against flesh.

Re: attempt jue ju-Turkish bath

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Great, you even captured the suggestively erotic theme.

A jueju: ILLU - the remix

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I’d asked him if anything was stirring.
“You had best come home with me.
My plans? Well, Watson, I love to
come to close grips with my man.”

Re: A jueju: ILLU - the remix

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

As he well might!