2013 BIRTHDAY CHALLENGE

Each year we provide an essay topic in a special birthday edition of the Muse distributed at the BSI dinner and the Gaslight Gala, as well as in the last issue of the Muse.

The Assignment 

Write a sonnet about a Canonical case or character, in the style of Starrett’s “221B.”

Birthday Challenge Winners

This year’s winner was Jeff Bradway. Last year’s winner, Sandy Kozinn, was our runner-up, and an honorable mention goes to first-time entrant April Curnow.  Jeff will receive a $30 gift certificate to the bookstore of his choice.

Two Hundred Twenty-one Bees

by Jeff Bradway

Here dwells together still a swarm of note
Who never stung and so can ever fly:
Their drone is dream-like as o’er downs they float.
The Master studies them with practiced eye,
Just as he tracked in London all those years
Men like Moriarty and Merridew.
With bee book done, we hope completion nears
Of his Whole Art, a magnum opus true.

Their yellow nectar fills the honey-combs
As night descends upon this fabled hive:
O, joy of joys! To live near Sherlock Holmes
And help to keep his genius alive!
Though small, their power greater by degrees,
All hail! These two hundred twenty-one bees.

2021

by Sandy Kozinn

The world moves fast and faster every day.
The older ways of friendship have all changed.
We hasten here and there; we cannot stay.
The graciousness of time is disarranged.

In days long past two men could meet and share
And finally become the best of friends.
Then, time moved slowly. It takes time to care.

Now we move on before the moment ends.
The past is ours. By opening a book
And seeing there two men who lived aright,
If only for an hour, within our nook,
The present flickers into gas-lit night.

Though worlds have changed and that for which we strive,
Still, Holmes and Watson always are alive.