holmes_minor | The Poetry Page: On The Bummel with Mrs. Hudson

Welcome, everyone, to this month’s poetry page!

This time we will be witnessing a ladies’ cycling display by the Catford Cycling Club.

And yes, I think here come the first bicyclists now…

🚲 🚲 🚲 🚲 🚲

Well, that was most inspiring. I hope you will be excited to learn that I have hired several safety bicycles so that we too can have a little trip of our own today.

Now, you may recall that all the ladies we saw earlier were wearing the usual long skirts. But if I might be so bold: I think the ladies amongst us should try rational dress. Yes! I’m talking bloomers!

Oh.

Oh, dear.

Could someone put Mrs. Frankles into the recovery position, please? I keep forgetting what a delicate flower the poor woman is.

While we wait for Mrs. Frankles to regain consciousness, perhaps I could share with you a quotation from Dr. Watson’s story ‘The Priory School’:

"Well, well!" said Holmes, impatiently. "A good cyclist does not need a high road…”

I shall leave that with you as extra inspiration for your poems.

Ah! You’re back with us, Mrs. Frankles? Excellent. And so, donning whichever bicycling attire you feel most comfortable in, let us begin our little journey, composing as we go. As in clothing, as in poetry: you are free to use any form you like. Here are a few suggestions:

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

All completed poems can be left as comments on my page!