For reference: Yatzhee Prompt 2022 #6

The internet tells me 'sprattle' is Scot for 'fight' and 'apricity' is 'The warmth of the sun in winter' which is a damn fine word I never knew existed. So I think I'm going to go with long poems for these.

For reference: Into a bar

Your assignment is:

Sherlock Holmes goes into a bar and meets... Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng (Jeeves and Wooster)!

Stiffy has an Aberdeen terrier named Bartholomew and she's not above blackmail and she called Jeeves the 'specific dream rabbit' as a complement when he sorts everything out, so should be interesting! Of course, I'll do it in Bertie voice. It would be no fun otherwise.

Poet's Corner: "A Herbal" by Seamus Heaney

I posted a poem about a pen from Human Chain by Seamus Heaney during April's poetry month, and here is another that I liked a lot. The poem is called "A Herbal" and it is long, so I'll link to it here. And there is an analysis here.

My favourite part was the final 6 lines. This is how you stick a landing.

Where can it be found again,
An elsewhere world, beyond

Maps and atlases,
Where all is woven into

And of itself, like a nest
Of crosshatched grass blades?

Poet's Corner: Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar

I finished Kaveh Akbar's collection of poems "Pilgrim Bell," and it is excellent [I look forward to reading his Call a Wolf a Wolf]. I have been inspired by many of the poems, and I will list some of my thoughts here.

debriswoman and I were talking about the ghazal as a form and how the trick is to get the
qaafiyaa right (the rhyming pattern) and match it with the radif which is the final word that repeats. This one does that really well.



"Vines" is a wonderful poem which I used to inspire a Holmes drabble. It's laid out on the page in diagonals like vines.

"The Miracle" is notable to me for the construction 'You too X to Y' in discordant contrast. Examples:

You too locked to door...
You too pebble to stone. Too saddle to horse. Too crime to pay.


"In the Language of Mammon" is written in backwards, mirrored-font. And "Palace Mosque, Frozen" is a concrete poem in concentric squares. Both of these I want to try.

"The Palace" is a long poem, but I like many of the lines.

There are no good kings.
Only beautiful palaces.
...

There are no doors in America.
Only king-sized holes
...
Hello, this Kaveh speaking:
I wanted to be Keats
(but I've already lived six years too long).
...
There are no good kings,
only burning palaces.