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Admin Post: Mrs. Hudson's Activity and Poetry Page
Dec. 10th, 2019 09:12 am![[admin post]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png){kind=small}
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holmes_minorHello everyone! Mrs. Small-Hobbit and Mrs. Frankles have requested that I host a combined activity and poetry page for December, and indeed I am delighted to do so.
Mrs. Frankles also suggested that I borrow a tradition from our neighbours in the Netherlands. She was speaking of “Pakjesavond” which is celebrated on the 5th of December, the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas—or Sinterklaas, as the Dutch call him.
It goes like this: everyone is allotted one person to buy a gift for, and they must also write a poem about that person—the poem can send up the person rather! The gift must be concealed in a cardboard model, which again must relate to the recipient in some way—something to do with their job or their interests. The Dutch call the models “surprises”, which is from the French and pronounced “sur-prees-suhs”.
You can see some excellent examples of these surprises in this article.
Now, naturally we do not expect you to actually buy a gift and make a surprise. But we would like you to pick someone out of everyone Dr. Watson has written about—that includes Mr. Holmes and the doctor himself, and indeed me—and think of:
a suitable gift
a suitable surprise
and write a poem about them
Though you don’t have to do all three options yourself! You can choose to do just one or two of them. Mrs. Small-Hobbit has suggested that you label your comment with the name of your “recipient”, then if you haven’t filled in all the options, other participants can reply to your comment with their thoughts. Or even suggest alternatives!
Feel free to be as wildly creative about these gifts as you like. And the poem can be a simple piece of doggerel but if you are feeling more ambitious, here is the usual list of 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
Ik wens jullie allemaal een vrolijke Pakjesmaand!
Mrs. Frankles also suggested that I borrow a tradition from our neighbours in the Netherlands. She was speaking of “Pakjesavond” which is celebrated on the 5th of December, the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas—or Sinterklaas, as the Dutch call him.
It goes like this: everyone is allotted one person to buy a gift for, and they must also write a poem about that person—the poem can send up the person rather! The gift must be concealed in a cardboard model, which again must relate to the recipient in some way—something to do with their job or their interests. The Dutch call the models “surprises”, which is from the French and pronounced “sur-prees-suhs”.
You can see some excellent examples of these surprises in this article.
Now, naturally we do not expect you to actually buy a gift and make a surprise. But we would like you to pick someone out of everyone Dr. Watson has written about—that includes Mr. Holmes and the doctor himself, and indeed me—and think of:
a suitable gift
a suitable surprise
and write a poem about them
Though you don’t have to do all three options yourself! You can choose to do just one or two of them. Mrs. Small-Hobbit has suggested that you label your comment with the name of your “recipient”, then if you haven’t filled in all the options, other participants can reply to your comment with their thoughts. Or even suggest alternatives!
Feel free to be as wildly creative about these gifts as you like. And the poem can be a simple piece of doggerel but if you are feeling more ambitious, here is the usual list of 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
Ik wens jullie allemaal een vrolijke Pakjesmaand!
The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-10 04:42 pm (UTC)OK...some suggestions please, re appropriate gift and surprise...
Dear Inspector Lestrade, you’d appear more in verse
If I knew what you rhymed with, for there is nothing worse
Than a line ending “yard” if your name rhymes with “spade”
And my poems don’t work if such errors are made.
You are even pronounced in some circles, like “sad”,
Which confuses the patterns, makes couplets sound bad.
And also, inspector, there’s one issue more;
Rat? Ferret? Hound? Bulldog? You can’t be all four...
Re: The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-10 07:44 pm (UTC)Re: The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-10 08:21 pm (UTC)Considering his gift...
I think he would like whatever the Victorian equivalent of crime scene tape is, so that Holmes would be less annoyed about contamination when called to said crime scene...and Watson might then write about him in more flattering terms. Perhaps Mrs H could knit it, a bit like a really, really long thin stripy scarf?
Not sure what to present his present in, though...
Re: The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-10 08:37 pm (UTC)Re: The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-10 09:02 pm (UTC)The washable and reusable striped knitted Victorian crime scene tape could perhaps be wound inside a cardboard facsimile top hat, with a jack in the box type mechanism for easy retrieval?
Re: The Inconsistent Inspector Lestrade
Date: 2019-12-11 12:43 am (UTC)The Unflappable Mrs Hudson
Date: 2019-12-10 09:09 pm (UTC)My dearest Mrs Hudson, your patience knows no bounds;
You filter out instinctively so many sights and sounds.
Explosions do not faze you; random gunshots bring no fear;
You cope with pandemonium for year on hectic year.
Harsh chemicals dissolve your pots, your drapes go up in flames;
And villains grace your flat, involved in vile and lethal games
You carry on regardless of the mayhem, fuss and noise,
And calmly put the rent up for your two untidy boys...
So, Mrs H needs a gift and a surprise...
Re: The Unflappable Mrs Hudson
Date: 2019-12-11 03:24 am (UTC)Re: The Unflappable Mrs Hudson
Date: 2019-12-11 10:12 pm (UTC)a cardboard window, with cardboard curtains. And when you pull a string, cardboard flames shoot up the curtains ^___^
Or a cardboard dartboard - a beautiful collage of Holmes and Watson as the bullseye.
And I think the present has to be a bottle of gin, maybe with a cocktail shaker and two glasses - so Mrs. Hudson can always have a glass in each hand ^__^
Re: The Unflappable Mrs Hudson
Date: 2019-12-12 06:11 pm (UTC)Definitely gin:-)