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

Thank you everyone for joining me here on the pavement outside 221, Baker Street! I see everyone is well wrapped up against the winter chill. But the snowdrops and crocuses are out and the daffodils are sprouting—a reminder that spring is on the way.

And to keep that imminent flora in mind I thought we would just make a short trip today—a quick walk down to the local chemist’s in order to sample and purchase the latest perfumes! Hopefully these will inspire us in our poems.

So off we go!

Of course, I do have the… advantage… of having a chemist living on the premises. His latest experiment being the reason we had to meet outside the building. Here is a relevant quotation from chapter nine of Dr. Watson’s story ‘The Sign of the Four’, which may further assist your compositions:

He would hardly reply to my questions, and busied himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which involved much heating of retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at last in a smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment.

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

And here we are at Strickland & Gill’s Pharmacy!

Oo, I see they have rose scent. And lavender… And jasmine.. And of course the scent of violets is currently very popular. Do see what most appeals to you personally.

What’s that, Mrs. Frankles?

Yes, it is all rather expensive.

However I believe Mr. Holmes has an account here so you all must feel free to treat yourselves...

And as always, all poems can be left as comments on my page!

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From:

thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com

The retort has been heated
And so we are treated
The vapours distilled
Our baskets are filled
An unfortunate smell
Floral scents shall dwell
Will drive me from my rooms
As we purchase our perfumes

An acrid smell in my nose
A bottle scented by the rose
The retort is in the bin
Another smelling of jasmine
Somewhere there was an error
And lastly one of lavender