The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

Alas, we're coming to the end of poetry month!

My favourite poem is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. It has everything I like: rhythm and rhyme, image after image after image, so clever turns of phrases, references to other works of art, nails the beginning, nails the ending, and shines all the way through. Unrelenting art. Not a single word or line wasted.

And as a voice junkie, I prefer to hear it read by Eliot himself. When I hear him say, "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," I get a shiver and my eyes start to tear, it so very beautiful and RIGHT. On the Youtubes, I listened to different versions: Anthony Hopkins (too fast and he sounds like one of those dudes from Shakespeare who wasn't very nice) and Jeremy Irons (better, but too slow and ACTING! and there was tinkly music in the background, no thank you!) but with Eliot's version I feel you hear what the poet himself heard in his inner ear when he wrote it.

Poetry + Prose: Trent's Clerihew: Gen

Title: Trent's Clerihew
Fandom: Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley (1913)
Length: 100
Poetic Form: Clerihew
100 Fandoms prompt: .100 Final
Notes: I learned this month that C in E. C. Bentley stands for clerihew, and that he invented the clerihew. Trent's Last Case is usually spoken of along with The Moonstone and The Murders in the Rogue Morgue as an important milestone in detective fiction (it's also a send up of the 'infallible amateur sleuth' archetype that was Sherlock Holmes). It was a sort of surprisingly discovery that Bentley was a poet, too. So I gave Trent's Last Case another listen [the narrator was Simon Vance, who is one of the best professional narrators] and wrote a clerihew for the protagonist Phillip Trent.

The journalist and artist Phillip Trent
discovered his time was much better spent
not solving crimes; his deducing days past,
the Manderson case was to be his last.

Trent was dumbfounded. Yes, in that moment, he found himself very dumb, indeed. He’d gathered all the clues, well, most of the clues, well, some of the clues, and he’d put them together and arrived at wrong conclusions. It was like Sherlock Holmes when he urged the stalwart Watson to whisper ‘Norbury’ in his ear if he showed signs of overconfidence, except Trent’s word was ‘Manderson’ and he would never require reminder.

Request for help: polar expedition horror

So tomorrow is Walpurgisnacht, which every good vampire-lover knows is a fun day for the dead to rise. It also is the antipode of Hallowe'en.

Hallowe'en is my high holy season for ficcing and every year I try to tackle a different kind of scary story (ghosts, vampires, creepy objects, Lovecraftian possession, etc.).

This year, I've set my sights on polar expedition horror (a la Papí Doyle's "The Captain of the Polestar."). It will more than likely be Sherlock Holmes ACD AU but I'm not wedded to that.

Anyway, if anyone has thoughts or fictional or non-fictional works about polar expeditions that I should check out, let me know! I'm starting from zero that's why I need to start early. And if I can't make it work, I shall fall back on ye ol' haunted house. :)