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Poetry + Prose: Trent's Clerihew: Gen
Apr. 29th, 2019 02:33 pmTitle: 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.
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.
