Author: carolyncordon

Wife, mother, Poet, Writer, Art Installationist, Stand Up Comedian, Dog Enthusiast. Spending most of my time being creative in a variety of sometimes quirky ways! I have suffered in my life, I have had wonderful things occur in my life. Concentrating on the wonderful things makes it easier for me to live a great life.
poetry

Month of Poetry Over

carolyncordon

The month of February was a wonderful month of poetry for me. I committed to writing a new  poem every day of the month of February. I didn’t actually write a new poem, as it turned out, but I did make up for it, by writing a new poem for the couple of days I missed. So the end result was that I did indeed write 28 poems, inspired by prompts given by a small group of poets.

These poets, organised a similar event in 2018, and I think they are planning the same thing for 2020. These lovely people were doing the same challenge, or as near as they were able to. It isn’t easy, to live a busy life, and do writing challenges like this at the same time, particularly if there are hungry children in the household, and it’s your task to keep them fed.

I’m not in that position, the only hungry creature I have to feed is our dog, and feeding Missy only involves giving her the correct amount of dog food, simple. Feeding children involves far more than that, that’s for sure. I suspect there is a poem in that, perhaps I’ve just given myself a poetry prompt?

Let me see …

Yes, not a clever poem here, but a new one, and written in a particular style, one I made up myself, quite a few years ago. I named this poetic style after myself, and called it the Cordonostic style of poetry. It’s one based on syllable counts, in this manner – first stanza, first line 3 syllable, second line 5 syllables, third line 7 syllables

Second stanza first line 7 syllables, second line 5 syllables, third line 3 syllables, third stanza first line 3 syllables, second line 5 syllables, third line 7 syllables, and so on for as long as you like. The poem I have written is not the most poetic example, but it will give you an idea on how it all goes.

 

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Why I have time for poetry

 

 

Feed the dog

dog food, scoop it up,

into her bowl, put bowl down –

 

eat it up Missy, good girl!

She chomps it all up

just like that!

 

Now, outside,

toilet break, back in –

never-ending tasks, daily.

 

She really is a good girl,

our dear Missy dog,

ageing now

 

getting grey,

older, and slower

but she’s still our lovely dog –

 

elegant, funny, hunter

a friend for us all –

canine pal.

 

Feeding kids,

and adults though, takes

more time. Something different

 

needed for evening meal

each day of the week.

Mother’s job

 

as a rule

even nowadays,

even if you’re a poet …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncategorized

Another Role for a Writer

carolyncordon

Today was a lovely day for me, and for a group of other people. Today I helped a friend to launch her new book, and poetry collection, her first one. And after I launched her book, another friend asked me to launch her book, which she hopes will be out later this year.

So, a book launcher, what a fine task to perform, to assist a new book person onto bigger and better things, one hopes. The book I launched today is by Colleen Moyne, here are the details. I have many friends who have had poetry collections published by Ginninderra Press, and have one myself, this one.

There was a good crowd, lots of food, and a good and friendly feel to the day. I was sitting with a friend, who I hadn’t seen for a while, and I asked her about her own book that I knew she’d been working on. And lo and behold, after filling me in on details on how things were going, and what her future plans were, she asked me yo launch her own book for her!

I’m assuming this must mean that she feels I did at least a good enough job, and this book launching deal! I spoke some words, (not too many), I read one of the poems, and listened while Colleen read some more of her poems, and then I declared the book launch, much clapping, then food (lots of it!) and the buying of copies of the book. Fun times for sure (and to make it even more delightful, Colleen gave me my own signed copy of her lovely collection!

So being involved in writing groups, writing books and getting them published, being available to other writers, these are all a part of what being a writer is all about. Holding your own book launch, where you and your book are the stars for the day, these are exciting things for sure, but helping your fellow writers is definitely up there in terms of excitement, and good feelings!

 

Writing

New Month, New Challenges

carolyncordon

So Summer is now over, according to the calendar, and it is now Autumn, in the Southern Hemisphere. In South Australia, particularly in Adelaide and further north, Summer is very much still here, with an awful day out there today – forty degrees and humid with it. Hot and sticky is never great, in terms of weather.

But it’s a new month, I’m inside, and the air conditioner is on in our lounge room, so it’s much cooler than it is outside. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but another of my writing related tasks is to be the Editor of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. This is a newsletter that is distributed around the town of Mallala, and a couple of other towns nearby (Two Wells to the Library, and Gawler to the P/A Hotel).

The copies delivered are printed in black and white (by the lovely people at Senator Alex Gallagher’s office), but the copy is available to be viewed in colour at the Facebook page Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. Click on the link, and you can download this most recent one, and many of the earlier issues. Things almost always look better in colour, don’t they?

So, being the Editor of this newsletter isn’t my New Challenge, but it’s sort of relevant. A couple of my friends, who are also members of Adelaide Plains Poets (a group of which I am President), these lovely people help me with the Chronicle, by giving me articles to publish in the Chronicle, and I absolutely love the idea that I am helping them to get their words ‘out there’, while they are helping me, by adding interesting things that are quite different to the usual community group things. I love these kinds of win/win situations!

And further sharing the love to my writing group, and relating to my new challenge, I brought several copies of the text of a picture book I have written, with a view to getting feedback about it. My work was praised, and one of those present gave me some excellent feedback, which I have utilised, and made adjustments to the words, accordingly. So thank you Michelle K, when I get this book published, you are definitely getting a free copy!

Putting together a community newsletter is a slightly messy, sometimes fraught, but always satisfying thing, but if you know what you are doing (which I do), then you can get it done, month after month after month. Getting a picture book published, that is a very different thing indeed.

I have tried to do this a few times, with a couple of different stories, and received only rejections, lots of them. So do I really want to put myself through that again? Well of course I do, rejection slip/letters  – they’re par for the course, if you want to get a book of any kind published …

My little picture book is set in Australia, and it has a theme of the importance of friends. I can almost see the book in my mind, and I love it! I hope I can find a picture book publisher now, one who will love my little book too! Michelle thinks my book is suitable for the 0-3 range of ‘readers’. I’d put it at 2-4, I think. Anyway, I’ll start sending it out, and see how things go.

poetry

A Happy Coincidence

carolyncordon

Today was a pretty full on day, with weather that acted against doing too much. I have a chronic illness that means I am particularly badly affected by being too hot, and the summer we’re having at the moment in my part of South Australia is hot, perhaps the hottest ever, or at least since Australia was settled by white people.

When you know what your limitations are, you learn how to deal with them , so that’s what I did, I spent a minimum of time outside in the heat, staying inside as much as possible, where it was nowhere near as hot, then drove, in my air-conditioned car, to

Anyway, I got to the usual writing group venue in plenty of time, but I hadn’t had time at home to write my poem for the day, the final poem for the #poemadayfeb I have been doing for all of this month, even though, I’d looked up what the word for today and so knew it was ‘yourself’.

Others arrived at the meeting, we went through the usual items, telling of our writing related activities for the previous week, talking about some relevant issues relating to several events we will be involved in, for the coming months, and then doing our writing exercise.

The writing prompt for today was ‘night’, and I eventually settled down to do my writing, based on that them, but without any real idea on what I was going to write. In the back of my brain, I had my poetry prompt, as mentioned, and together with that was the writing prompt from today’s meeting.

So, ‘yourself’, and ‘dark’, were possibly travelling around in the back of my brain, what would happen? As it turned out, a lovely small poem happened.  This unexpected poem is a senryu, another Japanese poetry form, similar to the haiku, but about people, rather than nature.

I’m relatively happy with this small poem, and the others at the writing group though it was a good one too. I love the people in this group, we share our words with each other, but there is so much more to it. We may have begun as people who write, but we have become friends, ones who care about each other. If you have a writing group too, I hope you have such lovely experiences.

Anyway, this is my senryu:

 

Every night leads

to a new day, a new chance

to be yourself.

poetry

Feminism, Marriage, Blame, Burden

carolyncordon

My word for the poetry thing for February that I’m doing ( #poemadayfeb ), is Burden. I didn’t have any difficulty at all, coming up with something to write about. The themes around what happens to women when menfolk seek sweeter pasture and younger fillies is such a common one …

I’m happy to report that my marriage is sound, and we are both happy with our thirty plus years since our wedding … Things change, but we have changed with them, doing some of the same things together, other things separately, but (almost) always meeting up again when it’s time to go to sleep.

I certainly know of other women whose experiences with husbands has been quite different to mine, and I hear stories of horrific ways that things can go wrong. When I hear about mature women who are living in their car, out of a suitcase, I am appalled.

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I can barely imagine how I may manage if I were left is such a position, and know it is highly unlikely that will happen to me. I know it could happen though, you can never really know how life may hit you, but my circle of family and friends is a wide one, and I feel secure enough.

I know there are homeless men, living in a homeless shelter, and having to move on during the day, and go back for the night. These men are easily recognisable, I see on often around the town I visit often, but I don’t notice women is similar circumstances.

There are women out there though, every day, probably, a woman may flee from the home she thought she had for the rest of her life, when her partner turns on her, and she fears for her life … I am a long way away from that position, thankfully, and I am grateful.

 

Anyway, here is my poem, based on the day’s prompt, BURDEN

thinking of burdens …

You name her a burden, that you don’t want to carry –

you riducule her, mislead, abuse and ignore.

She holds to promises folk make when they marry,

hadn’t thought this end might come, that’s for sure …

 

But she’ll soldier on, because that’s what we do,

caring for others, whether they deserve it or not

and when it’s the end, and his vows prove untrue,

who’s the one left sitting in the sweetest spot?

 

It’s him, although he’ll claim he’s been fleeced –

statistics though, will reveal the actual proof.

On break up, women usually left with the least,

many of them stranded without even a roof.

 

We carry his children, we deal with his needs;

we hope for true love, but manage with less,

he thrives, she works, she aches and bleeds

then he dumps her, because she’s looking a mess.

 

He new babe is perfect, his dumped one, a bitch,

their children confused, the hatred damaging –

she suffers the blame, his life continues, no hitch –

he’s going great, ex wife & kids barely managing …