When I sent off the manuscript to my chosen publisher, I wasn’t sure whether it would be accepted. I wasn’t unsure about the quality of what I’d submitted, but books can be rejected for a variety of reasons, beyond quality if the work/words.
It this new poetry collection was accepted, and the process of the publisher turning my poems and additional material into an actual poetry collection with a cover has begun!
Today that publisher, Gunninderra Press, sent me an image for possible use as the image for the front cover, and my next book is suddenly feeling even more real!
This next poetry collection is going to be my absolute best collection ever, and I feel I could never produce another one, and it wouldn’t matter, this poetry collection is perfection in poetic form! Or perhaps I’m kidding myself?
No, Stephen Matthews from Ginninderra Press likes it, and I trust his judgement, so this book-to-be is a good one! Isn’t as good as I feel it is at the moment? Only time will tell, but I’m happy with how this book looks and reads!
I’ve been working with Stephen a little bit about some of the non poetry bits and pieces of the book today (via email), and in the pit of my tummy, I can feel excitement is beginning to grow!
The actual putting together of the book is still not finished and so it usn’t printed yet, but there is an image for the front cover considered and approved of by me. So it is certainly looking like I will have an actual book to read from at the book launch, and copies to sell too, this is one of my favourite stages of this process, when I see my book being read by others!
The act of writing a poem can feel frustrating at times, trying to find a publisher can feel difficult if not impossible, and marketing, especially with a self-published book is horrid, but book launches are fun and joyous occasions!
So keep working on ‘LEONARD COHEN IS DEAD’ Stephen, so this new book will be ready to be launched at the end of May!
I like writing prompts, a lot. So when I saw this challenge, ‘EIF Poetry Challenge’ I gave it a good look. Sonnets are lovely. With a sonnet, you know what you’ve taken on. There will be only 14 lines, with a set number of ‘beats’ in set places, and there will be a rhyming scheme of a particular kind (one of two, actually, but not terribly different from each other.
So, the call for a sonnet, how could I resist? The person calling for sonnets is someone I know, as much as one ‘knows’ people online. She had got on board with something I’m working on, and so adding all of this together, of course I’d get a sonnet into the action.
When I got myself ready for this EIF Poetry Challenge, I’d intended looking into a sonnet I might already have, but the keyboard called to me, and changed my mind. It was time to write a new sonnet. And so, in accordance with instructions, here is my sonnet.
I hadn’t necessarily meant to write a poem about Covid-19, but that’s the main thing these days, isn’t it? And that’s the way it went, but with a possibly different slant on it, and bringing another ‘big thing’ into the action. A thing that may or may not be connected.
This is my new sonnet:
No Decent Reason … What on Earth is the reason, for this disease? A rhetorical question, but is there a ready answer? Is it response for doing whatever we please? Have we become Nature’s deadliest cancer?
We’re killing things with barely any restraint – With no regard for damage that we’ve caused, Murdering creatures – no avenue for complaint Wanting things right now. If only we’d paused …
Covid-19 a symptom of devastations, Inflicted on habitats, trees cut down. Some put all the blame on developing nations, But the destroyer here is the big end of town …
How do you explain to a little kid, The selfish reasons for what us oldies did …
One short form of poetry we all know is the Limerick. Who amongst us haven’t had a giggle at a rather risque limerick at some stage in our lives? Being a bit naughty, or worse, isn’t a necessity for the poetry form, it isn’t one of the poetic ‘rules’ for a limerick. What makes a poem a limerick is the rhyme, and the number of stresses, or ‘beats’ in each line, and the number of lines.
In a Limerick, the first, second, and fifth lines all rhyme and have three ‘beats’ in each line, and the third and fourth lines both rhyme and have two ‘beats’. If that sounds a bit confusing, here is a limerick I penned recently, on the theme of Covid-19, which seems to have taken up most of my attention, and much of this blogsite.
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This awful Covid virus
Sent here by Nature to try us –
It may cause some shrugs,
But I want my hugs!
It’s a blessing for those with shyness.
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The Japanese poetry forms, Haiku and the similar Senryu don’t rely on rhymes, they are more focused on line lengths. These forms are the same, except for subject matter. In the traditional Japanese format, they are both of 5, 7, and 5 syllables in the three lines that make up the poem. In more contemporary and wes, they may be shorter than that, but they are never a lengthy poem, and they focus on a moment, and the reading of the poem is done within a single breath, is one way I’ve seen it described.
The Haiku tends to be Nature focused, while the Senryu more focused on people, and it is more likely to show humour. There are many rules about these Japanese forms, too many for this blog post, but this site has a good explanation on what Haiku is, to help you to write your own. As I said above, Senryu has the same rules regarding form but not subject matter.
Nature in my front yard
Haiku can be difficult to get just right, and so can Senryu, this is one of my more successful Senryu, I feel:
My mind wanders –
watching birds & people
also wandering …
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So they were two of my favourite short forms of poetry, if you like them, why not leave a message and let me know!
My time has been spent at home, most of the time, I’ve only been going out to visit my Mum on some Fridays, when usually, pre-Covid-19, I visited her almost every Friday. a phone call has filled in for the visit, but it’s definitely not the same. No hugs with a phone call … But when I am able to visit her, that usual hug is even more precious …
So I’m staying at home, not doing as much moving around as I know I should, and could do, if my mind did the right thing by my body, and was able to convince me to do it … But my mind is busy doing other things, so I can’t be too hard on myself. I have a writing project, which I’ve spoken about quite a bit on this blog, and on Social Media, to get more interest in it, and so improve the project enormously.
That project is to create a book, an anthology, containing words written about this Covid-19 crisis we are all going through, in our various ways. So I’ve been collecting the words sent to me, having written some of my own to go in there too, but my own creative writing has been going slower. Yesterday I decided I might mend that, and wrote a Haiku. But I decided if I was going to put my Haiku into the anthology, I should have more than just the one Haiku poem, so earlier today, I wrote some more.
I’m not sure if they’re good Haiku, or the best I’m capable of, but they’re Haiku, and they cover some of my thoughts about Covid-19. I thought before I put them into the “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19” Anthology, I’d share them here first, to show some of my own ideas about it all, and to give ideas to any readers who pop by, to think on what they may write, and submit their words to me – up to three poems of up to thirty lines, and/or up to three pieces of prose of 2,000 words in total.
Sent them to me here (kittycordo@gmail.com), with “Plague Invasion submission” in the subject line.
So here are my Haiku responses to Covid-19, on this occasion I have stuck to the westernised 5 7 5 syllable count for the Haiku, there are other acceptable formats elsewhere:
Kitchen greenery
The herbs coming along well –
Food security?
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Giving cyber hugs –
Safe perhaps, but not as good …
I’m missing my friends.
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Medical visit –
Outing, and safety challenge.
Doc’s mask hides his smile.
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My window view, birds
swish themselves clean in bird bath.
Stuck home, not alone …
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Some of my herbs growing in kitchen.Just me, the TV and my laptop …
If you are inspired by my words here, please think about getting involved. All contributors whose work is accepted will receive a free copy of the book (postage and handling must be paid for, if not an Australian resident). I hope you’re feeling inspired by this, and want to take part. The book will be launched in early 2021, if things go well. further details will be announced on this blogsite, when known.
Thank you, I look forward to reading your Covid-19 submission!
So not only am I a poet, and President of Adelaide Plains Poets, I am also the competition secretary for that same writing group. Our writing group holds an annual competition, and has done so since around 2005. There have been many poems received from that time, and handed on for judging, then awarded. As the Competition Secretary, I am the fortunate person who gets to read every single poem entered in all of these competitions, and I have certainly read some truly awesome poems!
Every year, I know from experience, there will be a deluge of entries arrive in the mail, in the final weeks of the competition for the Open Section, and the numbers will be more than adequate for the judges to choose the awarded entries between a goodly number of poems, so that winning in our competition in the Open Section really means something significant in terms of literary quality, and so is deserving of the significant prize-money earned.
And on looking back at numbers of poems received at this point, for years in the past, it certainly looks as though the numbers this year, despite, or perhaps because of, Covid-19. Many of us are staying home, and writing … With the theme of the competition this year being “Vision” I’m wondering whether later entries may look at this terrible virus, and the way it is being dealt with, through a visionary looking glass, and comment through their poetic words …
And if they do so, I may well put on one of my other hats, that of an editor of an Anthology concerning Covid-19, which has been the subject of many of my recent posts on this website. If any of the entries do touch on the subject of this Anthology, and I feel the quality is high enough, I will certainly approach the poets if they would like their work to be considered for inclusion in “Plague Invasion – Creative Writing in Response to Covid-19”.
This poetry competition is for Australians only, and the Anthology is open to anyone and everyone globally, and there have already been worthy submissions from both Australians, and writers from other countries … And with the closing date for submission of work for consideration to the Anthology (31 July 2020), being after the closing date for the Poetry Competition, there will be no clash. The judging will be over, and winners announced before the book submission closes. It is hoped the two things might enhance each other …
And speaking of ‘enhancing’, one of the reasons Adelaide Plains Poets holds this annual poetry competition, is to improve, or ‘enhance’ the way poetry is looked upon by people in the Adelaide Plains region, which includes Gawler, and the Barossa regions. And in particular, it is hoped holding the two Student Sections (Primary School, and Secondary School), it is hoped to pique interest of students, in poetry. I know our judge for these sections is particularly interested in reading these entries, being a former school teacher herself, and maintaining interest in this sector still.
At the moment though, this section of the Adelaide Plains Poets Poetry Competition, has very few entries, and unless the numbers of entries don’t dramatically increase, it will hardly be worth judging, which wold be a sad thing indeed. With so many schools being closed down in Australia,, this has been a difficult time in regards to getting the word out to the various schools and their students. I hope this can be changed, and ask that anyone reading this who knows Australian Primary School and Secondary School Students to please pass on news of this competition. There is honour in being awarded because of your literary talents, in addition to the generous financial award the winners will be given, if their poem is chosen as one of the three best entries in their section.
Entry form and guidelines can be found at this site, and if you are an Australian citizen, I encourage you to take a look, and enter the competition, as well as pass the news of this onto any students you know, who may be interested in being involved. And of course if you know, or in fact are, a school teacher in Australia, this competition is a worthy one for students to enter. It is an easy process, and there is no entry fee for the two Student Sections, unlike entries in the Open Section.
Poetry can bring forward creative abilities and ideas, formerly unrealised, and with our world potentially looking toward a different way of being, the theme of Vision, is one we all need to be thinking about, long and hard, as we look to the post Covid-19 future …
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 