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B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond – The Baker Street – April 11, 2015

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Wikimedia.
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Wikimedia.

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Hello everyone!  This is Jen again, greeting you from B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond.  Thank you for participating in last week’s challenge!

For this week, you have the choice of writing a Shadorma (a non-rhyming six-line poem with a syllable count of 3/5/3/3/7/5) or a Baker Street Poem, which is a form that I invented about a year ago.

Yes, it was created because I am a huge fan of BBC’s Sherlock.
And yes, “Baker Street” refers to 2-2-1b.

Rules:

Each stanza has three lines.

Line 1:                   2 syllables
Line 2:                   2 syllables
Line 3:                   1 syllable and includes a “b” in the word.

You may choose to bend the rules and
substitute any consonant or vowel
for the “b” – so long as you use the same
consonant or vowel in each third line.

There are no specific rules regarding number of stanzas,
rhyme, meter, linking stanzas, not linking stanzas, etc.

A_short_biographical_dictionary_of_English_literature,_printer's_ornament_2

Here are two examples.  The first is pure “fan fiction”.

A_short_biographical_dictionary_of_English_literature,_printer's_ornament_2Danger
junkie:
bored.

Wily,
hawk-eyed:
brain.

Ballsy,
daring:
brash.

Stony,
private:
burned.

Sherlock.

A_short_biographical_dictionary_of_English_literature,_printer's_ornament_2

For the second example, I substituted a “j” sound for the “b” sound.  Plus, the formatting is slightly different – giving the poem a sort of “running” feel – and showing that you don’t need to group your poem into three-line stanzas so long as you’re following a 2-2-1b pattern:

No rhyme
today –
just
too much
regret
.    
[jabs
thrown like
cheap shots]

.       [jabs
.       that take
.       my breath]

.       [junk
.        wild and
.        brutal]

.       [jeers
.       landing
.       punches]

 crumbling
 aching
 jail

jail-cell-at-the-eastern-state-penitentiary-philadelphia-pennsylvania-wikipedia-tinted
Eastern State. Wikimedia. (Tinted)

A_short_biographical_dictionary_of_English_literature,_printer's_ornament_2

Feel free to write a shadorma and/or Baker Street.  The choice is yours! When you have written your poem(s), please TAG them B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond and MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie. Then add your link to the Mister Linky widget below.  If the link does not work, please leave your post link in the comments section.

Good luck!
Jen

40 comments

  4. Micropoetry is not my friend, just so you know! Gave it a shot though, and thanks for a wonderful prompt!

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  5. I’m not going to write a poem, I just wanted to say I like Sherlock Holmes, but for me it’s the older series with Jeremy Brett. They played it like Doyle wrote it. Brett was fantastic.
    I’ve been to 21 B Baker Street. It’s a touristy place — unfortunately. But it was neat to visit, then walk in the nearby park.
    Happy poetry to you.

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      • I was in London as a non-tourist and had some free time. I wandered around the city, and found myself in front of the museum.
        The Jeremy Brett series actually represented Sherlock’s room much as I would expect it to.
        Sometime I’ll tell you about this neat Sherlock Holmes book I have.

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  7. Last week my link here disappeared…so I’m only going to put it in the linky thing.
    Still a bit annoyed with a family member… you’ll see. I did a Baker Street.

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