Winner of the Annual Birthday Challenge 2008:
Editors' note: Each year we provide an
essay topic in a special birthday edition of the Muse
which is distributed at both New York dinners and posted on the ASH website.
This year’s assignment :
Write a Sherlockian haiku. Entries should follow the typical American
17-syllable, 3-line structure: five syllables in the first and third lines and
seven syllables in the second. Only one haiku can win.
As
expected,
this Challenge was hard to judge. All the entries were interesting, probably
because the form is so restricted. As contestant Brad Keefauver put it: “The
haiku is like a little verbal callisthenic for working the word-muscles in your
head.” For our one winner, we chose Warren Randall’s linkage of the steps of
221b and the haiku:
The stairs
are averse
So I climb
them in good form.
Five, Seven
and Five!
Congratulations,
Warren!
Here are some more who shared in the fun (in no special order).
Of haikus relating to particular stories, we liked Brad Keefauver’s enthusiastic
“rap” version:
Dig
Saxe-Coburg Square!
Beat the
pavement with your stick!
It’s all
hollow, man!
Dorothy Belle Pollack offered a mini-mystery:
Lachine and
the tale
Of David
and Bathsheba.
But what
happened there?
And Jeff Bradway added a critical note:
Scarier
than Hell,
The Hound
of the Baskervilles:
Hard to
show in film.
Michael Pollak worried about the landlady:
Is Mrs.
Hudson
The sad
reason for the lock
On the
Tantalus?
Chrys Kegley considered Holmes’ image:
Sherlock
wore a hat,
A funny two-brimmed cloth cap.
Thanks, Sidney Paget.
And Sandy Kozinn reflected on The Master’s skills:
Trouble
comes in mist
Blurred
like fog through a window.
Holmes can
see clearly.
But Dana Richards admonished:
If it
should strike you
I am
over-confident
Whisper “Norbury.”
And Peter Crupe summed up the January Weekend:
Birthday
greetings to
Master of
2-2-1-b,
Many more to come.
Thanks to everyone who entered!
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