Mrs. Hudson's Poetry Page: The Red Circle

[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.



The Raspberry Room

By Karin Gottshall


Note from Rachel: It must have been nightmarish for Mrs. Lucca to remain hidden in that room, never sure when violent disaster might overtake her husband or herself. I hope that she had a memory like the one described in this poem, of a refuge where - through blood and struggle - she could feel safe at last.



Thank you so much to Rachel. And I thought we could also have a go at a new poetry form: the hay(na)ku.

Robert Lee Brewer on Writer’s Digest gives this definition:


Hay(na)ku is a very simple poetic form, and it’s also one of the newest. It was apparently created in 2003 by poet Eileen Tabios.

Hay(na)ku is a 3-line poem with one word in the first line, two words in the second, and three in the third. There are no restrictions beyond this…

There are already some variations of this new poetic form. For instance, a reverse hay(na)ku has lines of three, two, and one word(s) for lines one, two, and three respectively. Also, multiple hay(na)ku can be chained together to form longer poems.

And in the comments, Vince Gotera explains: Eileen Tabios invented (no, birthed) the hay(na)ku. But I am its godfather; I named it. The name is a pun on "haiku" and the Filipino phrase "ay naku" which means something like "oh my gosh."



Here is my example:


Someone
Has swiped
My gin cocktail.

Someone
I think
Called ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

So
My retribution
Is being planned.

Oh,
I've means
For another cocktail.

Gin
Mint, lemon
A glass, but

Still.
It was
The last straw.



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, hay(na)ku, In Memoriam stanza, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, lies, limerick, line messaging, list poem, lyric poetry, mathnawī, micropoetry, mini-monoverse, musette, nonsense verse, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, quintilla, renga, rhyming alliterisen, riddle, rime couée, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, sonnet, stream of consciousness, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle


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


Warm regards,

Mrs. Hudson

Comments

Clerihew

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Signore Gennaro Lucca
Fell foul of a palooka
Enforcer for a circle red –
The hit-man hit; and Lucca fled

RE: Clerihew

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Very nice and sonorous!

Re: Clerihew

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Neat summary.

Re: Clerihew

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I really like 'Lucca/palooka' ^^

And I really like the last line too. If I can get into the technical stuff for a moment, I think it's the parallelism (?) - 'hit-man hit/Lucca fled'. Also the irony of the hit-man being the victim of the hit, and the alliteration almost being repeated too - 'hit-man/hit', 'Lucca/fled'.

RE: Clerihew

[debriswoman]

The pattern works so well:-)

Ferret's Easter triumph

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Bonnet
Like sonnet
First prize: mine!

Re: Ferret's Easter triumph

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

It will be indeed!

Re: Ferret's Easter triumph

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Someone really has to draw this ^____^

RE: Ferret's Easter triumph

[debriswoman]

Yay:-)

Hay(na)ku

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Circle
Red unbroken
By and by

Re: Hay(na)ku

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Clever!

Re: Hay(na)ku

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Very neatly done ^^

Re: Hay(na)ku

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Better
Prison waiting
In the sky

RE: Hay(na)ku

[debriswoman]

Nicely done:-)

A hay(na)ku

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

ATTENTA
ATTENTA, ATTENTA
PERICOLO. Pericolo? PERI—

Is
The game
Worth the candle?

Re: A hay(na)ku

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Possibly not. One would need a whole box to be able to play.

RE: A hay(na)ku

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

She is found out that way. Clever!

Re: A hay(na)ku

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

See, this is where acronyms and abbreviations come in handy. SOS or CQD saves a ton of candle-waving.

RE: A hay(na)ku

[debriswoman]

Nice wordplay:-)

Hay(na)ku

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Holmes
Ten days
Ash piled high

RE: Hay(na)ku

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Get a broom and open a window.

Hay(na)ku double inverted

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Index
of Watson's
whispered nothings sweet.

Do not disturb!
Almost forgot
honeybun

Re: Hay(na)ku double inverted

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Oh, crikey - that conclusion made me laugh ^___^ Nice set-up ^_^

Mrs. H's poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Love the pun in the final line!!

Re: Mrs. H's poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Bless you for noticing, dear.

Rachel's choice of poem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I particularly like this one. I love the imagery, and the poem feels like a fairy tale or magical realism, even though it's set in the real world. The narrator's feelings are something I can identify with too.

Re: Rachel's choice of poem

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

I agree. Nice linking of the sentiments with the physical environment. Concrete vs. invisible constraints.

Re: Hay(na)ku Romance

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Aw. Such soft beautiful language for what is not a soft situation at all. Like the juxtaposition.