Our theme for the month of October is “flash nonfiction.” Writers were asked to submit pieces that were 250 words or less.

“Linguistic Sherlock Holmes”:
philology was his truest of loves,
enjoying crosswords and
never losing his literary soul—
thank the Immortal Four.

From his chest rang out the voice of Gandalf,
and his wife did not call,
for he had been into the dragon’s lair.
He, in fact, a hobbit,
anxious about his own internal Tree,
disliked antithesis
in men, and allegory in all books.
The things one tried to say
he wrote, after none were there to say them.

Summer came t’ England,
so he danced among hemlock in a wood—
with who but Lúthien,
the fair dame he had for his life pursued;
Tinúviel, his wife.

Moderate and sensible and unflorid and English,
past death received one final wish—
that the world might read his history,
The Silmarillion: land lost to mystery.

This is a found poem from J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter.

Gwyneth Findlay

Gwyneth Findlay is an editor living in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where she mentally and physically collects world maps. She graduated from Calvin in 2018 with a degree in writing and minors in French and gender studies.