Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Turning Japanese? No, Just Appreciating Some Japanese Things …

carolyncordon

I’ve been enjoying writing for the Medium.com online platform, especially exploring different subjects to write articles about. This one that I posted today is relevant in part to this blog, and another two of my blogs as well, I suppose. But this ‘Writer’ site is the most relevant one to the Medium piece.

If you’re interested, this is the link to it: https://kittycordo.medium.com/senryu-haiku-or-just-short-three-lined-records-of-moments-f5b238e78364

I included two Japanese-style short poems in the article, and cover a little about Bonsai and Japanese food too. I like my Bonsai trees, may they continue growing for a great many years into the future! And while I don’t eat Sushi, I do enjoy Tempura and Yakitori!

Obviously there are things about the Japanese culture of which I am ignorant, but that could also be true of other countries, and probably unless you live it, and perhaps were born into it, you can never truly understand what really goes on …

I enjoyed sharing those two pieces I wrote about our dog, Missy, one about last night and her fearful reaction to the electrical storm, with lightning and the scariest part, the thunder. This is I think the third time Missy has had such an extreme reaction to thunder, and I was so sad, seeing her trembling the way she was.

That’s why I was so happy to see her curled up on her lounge chair, peacefully snoring, with ‘not a care in the world’ as the saying goes. I really hope we don’t have too many more such storms, poor Missy wouldn’t like it, not at all. And at the age of fourteen, Missy has had enough time to learn about what she does and doesn’t like, that’s for sure!

Fourteen, times by seven to find her age in human years? That makes for a very old dog indeed! But when you do the calculation, you can see the folly of paying too much heed to that one. Missy is sound still in mind and body, eating well, and while she loves her naps, she’s still an interested hunter, when the opportunity arises …

Missy is certainly not a Japanese dog, her breed, the Pharaoh Hound is thought to be from Malta. But of the Japanese breeds of dog to choose from, I’m not all that taken with the larger breed, the Akita – the small breed, the Shiba Inu is a cute little dog though. I don’t know anything about their temperament, but I never saw any signs of nastiness from one, back in my dog show days.

If we get any more stormy weather, may Missy snooze through it all, so we don’t have to worry about her, like we did last night. Oh, being a dog owner can be troublesome sometimes … The good times, though, are excellent, and I’d hate to be without a dog. Dogs, gardens and books, lovely!

Uncategorized

Physical, Mental, Spiritual – Words Connect Them All

carolyncordon

I am a writer, that is who and what I strongly feel I am. I write things, publish my writing in a variety of ways, and share my writing as well, to interested ‘audiences’. Those audiences may only be members of my writing group, most of the time, but sometimes it may be a larger audience than that.

I am currently having two new people, support workers, who visit me most weeks. One of them is involved with helping me to more safely get out and about in the community, working on my physical issues. The other helps me get out and about by actually taking me there, and having a fun time with me when we get there, wherever ‘there’ is.

Spiritual, ah, this is the one I do alone, at home. From my favourite sitting spot, and looking out of the window over to my left, I can see the trees, flowers, sky, and birds, all doing their things while I watch. Nature is the thing that speaks deeply to my ‘soul’ if that’s what it is, that warms my heart and soothes any troubled thoughts.

I’ve written about all of these things, but really, not enough about all that Nature means to me, I suspect. Nature is all of the good things that happen, and the reason I hold to, to move forward when the bad things happen. Nature builds up after it has destroyed, and it brings along new options, in the face of troubled times blocking the usual ways of doing …

Nature is my ‘god’, my big unknowable reason for everything. The dark sky at night, the seasons that come along, one after the other as they always have. Nature is … everything.

I can walk because Gravity holds me up, and I also crash to ground if I have a trip and fall. Nature has given me a chronic illness, that adds to these falls too, I suppose, but the many benefits I get from Nature makes it forgivable.

Thinking about these kinds of things helps me to organise my mind, and sort out what are the good things in life, mine and the loves of others. And further thought, especially looking into /stoic thought has enabled me to learn to let go of the things I can do nothing to change.

No point worrying if there’s nothing I can possibly do, I’m far better off delving more into the things I actually am able to do. So reading about such matters, when I find writers whose outlook on life meshes with mine makes for an effective way for words to help me become the best I can be, Physically, Mentally, Spiritually.

Thinking, writing, speaking, all need words, and being able to use those words is an awesome thing.

Uncategorized

WordPress Is Annoying Me …

carolyncordon

I did something a little bit different to my WordPress blog, this one, and now my WordPress Blog has done something a little bit different back at me.

C’est la vie I tell myself. It will sort itself out, and the reality is that while I enjoy blogging, there are more that just that one form of writing to get my word out to the world. I can write things for the newsletter (Mallala Crossroad Chronicle), I edit, produce, have printed, and distribute every month, or I could write more poems for another possible collection. Or I could write one of the two books I’m currently either working on, or thinking about.

So if I wanted to, I could do any of those other things, and there are so many other things I love or at least like to do, that have absolutely no need for me to proficiently use WordPress, or even have a bog of any description.

I prefer actual people more than the internet anyway, real people who laugh, drink coffee, write wonderful words, or no words at all! And plants, the blue sky, those clouds up there, no need for any blog, to be able to enjoy any of those things.

So a message to WordPress, you may have beaten me over this particular issue, but I am much stronger than you think, and I will work out where I went wrong, eventually, and get it all sorted out.

But right now there are many things that I am much more interested in than that! So instead of letting this minor annoyance build into anything bigger, I will leave this blog post, and have my lat lunch and read an actual book!

So nyah, nyah, nyah to you WordPress – you can’t beat me, I have books, and coffee, and yummy food!

Uncategorized

Not All Poems Need To Be Shared With All

carolyncordon

Yesterday was a big poem writing day for me, and I don’t know when, or if, the poems I wrote will be widely shared. So poems may have only one reader who will understand the poem written. But that one person may be the perfect person to read a poem, and find solace, or understanding, or relief from the poem and that is what many of us wish to give …

Author’s photograph

I’ve written some poems, and published them in a collection, that had a limited audience, but those who understood, and felt the truth of my poems, were exactly the kinds of people I was writing for. And those people may well be the ones who will understand the poems I wrote yesterday.

So for that to happen, I’ll need to share the words, carefully, and hope my intent is understood, as one to assist in healing, not trying to rip sheds of skin from already damaged people.

Touching on damages done, can hurt people, but ignoring the truth of that damage can destroy them. I hope my writing is always felt to be understanding, and healing. ‘damaged children, Precious Gems’, a blog, and a poetry collection, have been the way I’ve gone with my poetry in the past, and I have a feeling that blog, and at readings from that poetry collection, may be where I eventually share these recent poems I have written.

Or perhaps it may be that I am the person to gain healing from the writing of these poems, and they are never shared more widely at all. And that is fine. Therapeutic writing is definitely a thing that works, it has done so for me in the past, and does for other people all around the world – it has in the past, does in the present, and will into the future.

Words work, in many ways.

Uncategorized

A New, To Me, Poetic Form

carolyncordon

I am quite fond of the shorter poetic forms, such as Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka, which are 3, 3, and five lines respectively. All three are Japanese forms and while these forms in Japan are not exactly the same as Western poets understand those forms to be. It’s complicated.

There have been many wise words written about those poetic forms, and I’m not the person to have that discussion here. I am instead going to talk about a form called the Tetractys poem. It was ‘invented’ by a man named Ray Stebbings, in the year 2000.

On further research, I’ve actually found a mention of this poetic form back in 2016, when I actually left a comment on the website post it was described in. So my dodgy memory strikes again, ah well … It doesn’t really matter, I’m enjoying giving it a go again!

In that article, which you can read here, if you’d like to, it is mentioned the poem can take on a variety of extended further forms, but at the basic level, it is a short poem of five lines, with this syllable per line count:
one, two, three, four, and ten syllables per line.

And in that article, it is mentioned the whole poem can be about a single thought, exploring it briefly, and then end. I wrote a couple of attempts at this poetic form, before reading that comment, so wasn’t thinking about that aspect of the Tetratcys, but these are my own tries at writing on of them:

Here
tonight,
I wonder
if tomorrow,
knows or even cares, how great this day was?!

I wrote this poem about the writing event I attended yesterday, and it was completely fabulous, so I wanted to immortalise it, forever! Or if not forever, then at least for now! The event was a presenter/poet who spoke interestingly about her writing, and public speaking. The guest was a well known South Australian ABC radio presenter, Annette Marner, who has two recent books, one a novel – “A New Name For The Colour Blue”, the other a poetry collection – “Women With Their Faces On Fire”. Both are awarded works of literature, and I heartily recommend you try to get a copy, and read them. Both are published by Wakefield Press.

This is the second poem I wrote:

This
is not
anything
deep, meaningful,
OK? It’s just maths, mashed with words. Art? Shrug …

So on re-reading my two poems, I can see both are in in keeping with what this poetic type is supposed to be, a single thought, explored a little. And to be honest and not wanting to brag, I quite like them both, but with a preference for the second one.

I’d love to know what you think about this form, and my words written about it. And of course, I’d love you to comment on my own poems, of course! Whether you like my work or not, the truth as you see it, is what I want to read!

Thank you.