Mrs. Hudson's Poetry Page: The Missing Three-Quarter

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Welcome once again to my poetry page!

I hope each week you will read Dr. Watson’s delightful narrative and then go on 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.

And here, courtesy of my housemaid Rachel, is this week’s suggested poem to read—a suggestion inspired by the themes and subjects in this week's story. Hopefully you will enjoy the poem, and perhaps it may give you some ideas for a poem of your own or allow you to look at Dr. Watson's story in a new way.



In a London Drawingroom

By George Eliot


Note from Rachel: We here at Baker Street know that it is the quiet times the good doctor dreads most. The dangerous calm, he calls it, when Mr. Holmes looks out his window and sees nothing in the world worth remarking upon.



Thank you so much to Rachel. And I thought we could also have a go at a new poetry form: the list poem.

Betsy Franco gives this definition:

A list poem can be a list or inventory of items, people, places, or ideas. It often involves repetition. It can include rhyme or not. The list poem is usually not a random list; it is well thought out. The last entry in the list is usually a strong, funny, or important item or event.


Here are two more resources that may help you:

How to Write a Funny List Poem and ”List Poem” instructions & examples



And here is my example:


Good morning! You join us now for 221’s sports day
And already the games are underway.

Mr. Holmes wrestles with miscreants who’ve decided to call.
And then there is sprinting the length of the hall.
Shall we watch the slalom round each dining room chair?
Or boxing—lovely uppercut from the good doctor there.
Ah, of course—on to shooting! Which side is most able?
(Your commentator now reporting from under the table.)
Is it rugby now? There seems rather a scrum…
No! Final whistle—the police force has come!

And here is the score—the totted up bill:
Mrs. Hudson: £5, seventeen shillings and six.
Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson: nil.



But you do not have to use that form. 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, ballad, beeswing, blackout poetry, blitz poem, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, colour poems, compound word verse, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, echo verse, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, epigram, epistle, epitaph, epulaeryu, Etheree, fable, Fib, florette, found poetry, free verse, ghazal, haiku, In Memoriam stanza, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, lies, limerick, line messaging, list poem, lyric poetry, mathnawī, micropoetry, mini-monoverse, musette, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, quintilla, renga, rhyming alliterisen, 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 Missing Three-Quarter in the comments on this post. I look forward to seeing them!


Warm regards,

Mrs. Hudson

Comments

Clerihew

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Little Lord Mount-James
A Scrooge in all but his names
Would cut off his nephew did he wed beneath
So left poor young Godfrey to secrets and grief.

RE: Clerihew

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Very tight, expertly woven.

Re: Clerihew

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

'Mount-James/names' is rather neat. Obviously 'names' has to be in the plural to rhyme with 'James'. But it's a nod to his double barrelled name - which just in his case rather seems to echo his ridiculous pomposity.

RE: Clerihew

[debriswoman]

A miserable old man captured perfectly

Re: Clerihew

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

And thus perpetuated his own misery.

RE: A list poem: written earlier

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Absolutely love it! Especially the twist on the last line.

Re: A list poem: written earlier

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's just perfect ^___^ Especially loved:

A footprint, a hound and a lethal plot thwarted;
A blackmailer burgled, his young housemaid courted;
The Woman who triumphed with humour and grace;
Do you recall this particular case?

Re: A list poem: written earlier

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Excellent list - and brilliant last line!

Re: A list poem: written earlier

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

I'm at a folksinging convention this week - I'll have to sing this in open circle!

Mrs. H's poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

You win the gold medal for patience, Mrs. H.

Re: Mrs. H's poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

A witty and thoughtful response, dear.

Rachel's poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

What a masterpiece! I'd quote favourite parts but that'd be the whole thing. I didn't know Eliot wrote poetry. Weren't we all tortured with Silas Marner in school?!

Re: Rachel's poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Embarrassed to say that before this poem I hadn't read anything by George Eliot ^^" (It was two years of Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey' for me ^___^ And I was a teenager who loved reading but didn't completely understand subtext: 'They're saying one thing and meaning another? What?' ^__^ I dipped into Northanger Abbey again a while ago and was surprised by how funny it was.)

It is a wonderful poem - and could have been written for Holmes.

Re: Rachel's poem

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm so happy you liked it!

I dodged the Silas Marner bullet in school, only to be felled by Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome, which I am willing to bet is worse :)

My mother-in-law's favorite book is Eliot's Middlemarch, but I have yet to read it.

A list poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street…





A selection of odd telegrams Holmes received through the year--
To begin, from Hopkins: THANK YOU FOR LENDING AN EAR.
Calling that strange--not much of a boast?
Well, here’s the next line: WILL RETURN EAR BY POST.
And Miss K. has been dispatching her proposals again.
No, not marriage: PISTOLS. AT DAWN. JUST NEXT TO BIG BEN.
Though someone at Baker Street’s heart is in fetters:
An admirer sends the deerstalker ten word love letters.
WIPE YOUR D___ FEET--now that one’s unsigned.
(Though a possible author does come to mind.)
Then there’s riddles, and poems, and an analysis of soil...
And there’s constant death threats from some chap called Doyle.

RE: A list poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Ha, ha! Brilliant! Especially the last line! And I love that the ears have made it into comm head canon.

RE: A list poem

[debriswoman]

Wonderful:-)

Re: A list poem

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I do like the ears. I fear the unanymous telegram will be ignored.

List poem

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Moorhouse, first reserve,
Stevenson, can’t drop,
Both will be beaten by Morton and Johnson

Overton, first reserve
‘Gainst Wales,
And Varsity skipper this year

Godfrey Staunton
Crack three-quarter
Cambridge, Blackheath and five internationals
Now missing

Re: List poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Oh, perfect choice of subject for your poem ^_^ Great stuff ^__^

Re: List poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can definitely see Overton doing what all coaches do, the 'team math' over and over.

RE: List poem

[debriswoman]

Very clever:-)

John Watson--his depths (a list poem)

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Of gossip, lurid news, his knowledge’s vast,
but query him of crimes of note? Blank stare.
He’s a philosophy enthusiast
espousing theories from his fireside chair.

Of stars, he knows too much. Of politics,
it’s worse. Of plants, he’s wise on pruning shears,
but poisoner’s preferred herbs, leaves, and sticks?
He lacks. On soils, as well, in deep arrears!

Of chemistry, his knowledge’s thin but sound,
yet, as with any doctor worth the name,
his knowledge of body function, form’s profound.
Of games of chance, sport, music, law, the same.

In one field, though, he’s opposite of nil:
detective-care, his matchless, depthless skill.

Re: John Watson--his depths (a list poem)

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Those last two lines sum Watson up perfectly.