The Poetry Page: On The Bummel with Mrs. Hudson

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This month we are making another trip to that marvellous music hall YouTube! And this time we are going to see an exhibition of some gorgeous dolls’ houses.

But before we go any further…

There have been some problems in the past—members of our little band getting mislaid after these jaunts. So I am laying down a few rules right at the beginning.

Firstly, I will be counting everyone before we get on the train, and will recount everyone before we leave YouTube’s premises. Secondly, there will be no trips to the bar. And thirdly, regarding Mrs. Small-Hobbit and Mrs. Frankles—I hesitate to use the term ‘troublemakers’... But I shall expect you both to remain within my sight at all times and to hold hands during all travel.

Thank you.


Now on to the the details of the houses we will be looking at:


The Elkin House

Made somewhere between 1800-1830



The Drew House

A home of the 1860s.



Mrs Bryant's Pleasure

It was made for a lady called Mrs Bryant in the early 1860s, who lived in a house in Surbiton called Oakenshaw.



Betty Pinney’s House

The house itself was made in 1870 but the furnishings are from later. The house is a portrait of life in a wealthy household from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.



Devonshire Villas

It is a replica of a real house that existed in Kilburn, North London, which was later destroyed. It was made in 1900 for Mr Samuel Loebl, who lived in the house at the time, as a present for his daughter, Cecy.



Dolls house, England, 1890-1910

This type of house was widely commercially available through mail order catalogues as well as department stores and toy shops in the early years of the 20th century.



And finally, this lovely one representing a dressmaker’s establishment, and dating from 2014!

Wait a moment… Over a hundred years from now? Surely that date cannot be right? (This is the last time I ask Doctor Watson to help me with my notes…) Still, I greatly recommend it despite its date.


Before we leave for the station, I will offer you this quotation from Dr. Watson’s story ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ as additional inspiration for your poems:


It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coach-house.


Here are the usual suggestions for poetry forms:

221B verselet, abecedarian poetry, acrostic poetry, alexandrine, ballad, barzelletta, beeswing, blackout poetry, blitz poem, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cherita, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, clogyrnach, colour poems, compound word verse, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, débat, décima, descort, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, echo verse, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, enuig, 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, puente, quatern, quintilla, renga, rhyming alliterisen, riddle, rimas dissolutas, rime couée, rispetto, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, shadorma, sonnet, stream of consciousness, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, tricube, trine, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle, xenolith


As always, all poems can be left as comments on my page. And now on to the railway station and so to YouTube!

(Mesdames Small-Hobbit and Frankles, in front of me, please and take each other’s hands. Yes, I really, really do mean it.)

And so away!