Holmesian Poetry

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

[This is going to count as Fannish 50 post #14.]

I have not been writing poetry for very long. I must've written some in childhood in school but that is more than 30 years ago. I began around 2017, and my beginning can be found in a particular post of the LiveJournal comm Sherlock 60 for 60. This comm was dedicated to writing a drabble per week per story in Sherlock Holmes canon (there are 60 original stories). There would be a different poetic form every week, too. I can remember very clearly debriswoman and smallhobbit and scfrankles were part of it and they taught me in the comments section of a post (they reminded me, I am certain I learned it at some point in a cobwebbed past but I didn't remember it) what metre is. garnerhill was also part of the comm. I started writing and found I enjoyed it. We had a couple of fun years with that comm.

So my roots of poetry writing are fannish, directly fannish, and I've written tons of fannish poetry, mostly Sherlock Holmes but also other fandoms.

There is still a poetry page of the holmes_minor comm. This month's prompt was about sewing a waistcoat. My poem is a terza rima sonnet related the canon story "A Case of Identity." And it wouldn't be a Poetry Month if I didn't post the most well known poem about Sherlock Holmes: Vincent Starrett's "221B." Since the 60 for 60 comm closed, I have been putting my poems in a collection on AO3 called Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo the title of which is taken from that poem (221b).

waistcoat by okapi

Miss Mary Sutherland adjusts her glasses,
sits down, and sets to work, not with typewriter,
but pencils and shears of various classes.

Her pensive brow furrows tighter and tighter
as strokes and snips breathe life into patterned thought;
with every measured inch, her vision’s brighter.

The choice of fabrics has been carefully wrought,
no silver silk lining for this work of art,
but rather two sides, tailored, collared, and taut.

One pale, fit for an angel, of false-sewn dart,
one dark, for a man of affairs, on reverse,
Miss Mary’s well-pleased at this gift of her heart.

Revenge in a close waistcoat, but it could be worse;
at least the devil’ll be well-dressed for the hearse!

221B by Vincent Starrett

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game's afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I am very taken with your poem - especially the last line :)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you! I will always be grateful for you for inspiring and guiding my interest in poetry. [and I am still thinking about your many armed waistcoat]

[debriswoman]

That’s very clever and neatly put together with a wicked final 2 lines, and I am so glad you took to poetry so well:-) An awful lot of talent :-)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you, thank you! I will always be indebted to you for your encouragement and support.

[scfrankles]

A charmingly gruesome twist to your poem ^__^ And I love that idea of the waistcoat having two sides--one for each persona.

I've just been looking back at some of the old sherlock60 poetry pages. We did have a great time ^__^ I'll never have your or Mrs. P's talent but some of the poems "Mrs. Hudson" wrote made me laugh ^__^ And you came up with some wonderful stuff ^___^

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Mrs. Hudson was the best!!💖💖