Tag: poetry

Uncategorized

Thinking About What To Write About Next …

carolyncordon

My mind is filled with so many ideas, it’s difficult to settle down to actually write anything, sometimes, like right now!
I had a fabulous idea to write about a plant that’s going well in our garden, making it a combination of giving information about herbs, and also including poetry, which is a very much favoured way to write for me.

This new plant has flowered, and I’ve noticed the bees around the place are very much attracted to the sweet little flowers that grow on this plant, which is new to me, having been icluded in a seed mix to plant out ro attract butterflies, and as I’ve noticed, also bees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage

The plant is borage, and if you click on the link, you’ll see the lovely little blue flowers, and large leaves.

What I wanted to do, and may still do, is to write a bit about Borage, and how it came to be growing in our garden, and then post an Acrostic poem using “B O R A G E” as the starting letters of a six line poem about this delightful new plant …

So that’s one thing, but I also possibly could be writing more of the Cosy Murder Mystery Novel I’m possibly more that half way through, but have been more or less ignoring for far too long. I’ve also been ignoring this website of mine, even though I actually love writing and connecting with other people online!

And of course there are the other things on this website of mine, which is relatively new to me, and I’m not really sure about how to use effectively … I haven’t been loving it, so have been ignoring it, which anyone who comes here may realise.

The image above is definitely NOT what I wanted to post here, which proves how much I still need to learn about how to use this website! I’d actually taken that photograph for something else entirely, the monthly newsletter I create and distribute in my local town, Mallala.

The photo was of one of the entertainments at the 2025 Mallala Christmas Street Party, which curiously takes place mostly at the local oval, rather that the street …

Anyway, enough of this, it’s time to move on to other things now, and I promise I’ll be back again soon, as long as I manage to actually manage to get here again! Haha, at least my sense of humour is still working!

Uncategorized

Curious Collect Create Curate

carolyncordon

The Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation began as something far more simple than an extensive Art piece with over 700 individual pieces on display, as it is now.

But as they say, from little things big things grow, and yes, they sure have! It all started a couple of years ago, when I began picking up small bits and pieces of metal, usually beer bottle caps, and putting them on the front fence of ‘our place’, which is the home of my husband and I, in Redbanks South Australia.

Redbanks is a small township, in rural SA, in the Adelaide Plains Council area. There is a commnity Hall fallen into disrepair, and there are houses on small blocks, and there are farming land all around. We’ve lived here since 1988, and love our move from suburbia!

And while we love it out in the country, there is not a lot of community feeling in Redbanks, for that you need to go to Mallala, the closest town to our place, or Gawler, which is a good bit bigger than Mallala.

We moved out to the Adelaide Plains to breed pure bred show dogs, but now have moved away from that world, and simply have a pet dog, a Greyhound, Lenny. Lenny is an important part of this story, because many of the found objects found/collected when taking Lenny for a walk, are now on display in this Art Installation!

The creation aspect has come more recently, when someone I’ve been talking with someone about what I was doing, and it became clear to me this was much more than just a fence, with bits and pieces stuck on it, or leant against it! And as the Creation aspect moved along, the ideas regarding what I was doing grew conceptually, and before I knew it, I was an Art Installation Curator, presenting a literature-based viewing and then writing workshop.

And now, to take that aspect further, there is an anthology planned to be published and launched in the new year! The more I think about this project, the more I can see could happen with it, and at the moment, I’m in the process of readying various items from this Art Installation for a viewing at another site during SALA (SA Living Artist) Festival in August this year!

How Exciting is this? Very exciting, is what I say, and I’m loving being the Curator of an Art Installation!

Uncategorized

Exciting Times Are Coming Soon

carolyncordon

As a poet writer of many, many years with nine books published, I consider myself to have been a hobbyist for most of those years, and while I’d more recently thrown off the hobbyist tag, I haven’t really thought of my writing as being a business.

But as a creative person, with ideas frequently popping into my mind, and with some of these ideas while still Creative things, they’re a large step on and up, far beyond being a poet and writer. And with these new ideas I have, I can see much more opportunities in terms of actually making money, more than occasionally selling one of my books.

I am looking to bring together all of my Creative things I do, and doing all of them as aspects of the business ‘Carolyn Cordon Creative’. I am poet and writer, yes, but I will also be and Art Installation Curator, and a Stand Up Comedian/Performer too. And while I will still be doing the various creative writing group and workshops I currently do for free, I will also be putting my name out as a Performer and Presenter, and also the person running a Tourism business.

I’ll have lanyards for this and that, so many of them I’ll have to be careful not to choke myself! Haha. One tag will do – Carolyn Cordon Creative!

The turnaround in my thoughts about all of this came, I feel, when I realised what I did at my own home had possibilities for Tourists to visit, and also my most recent creative writing workshops are proving to be worthwhile to others, and fun to me as well.

And while I won’t be starting to charge for those particular workshops, I feel the world is my oyster regarding any more such opportunities that come along.

And having this new website, where I have brought all of these aspects of myself together, and having paid money for it, rather that doing the basic websites by myself, well, it feels much more business-like to me. I’ve been talking with people, getting assistance, and I know who to talk to in the future to get all of this business thing up and running, soon, soon, soon!

I’ve put a note on my calendar (which I’m now using in a more business-like manner these days), to get a haircut if and when needed, and for me that is definitely a sign of new things on the way. Usually my next hair cut is months overdue before I get around to doing anything about it!

I have meetings that will be relevant to me in my new business happening soon, I’ve got a milion ideas in my head, and I am so excited to be doing this. I know there are many things I don’t know yet that I don’t know, but the idea of the new learning required makes me even more excited, not worried!

I have two books on the way, with both of them to be launched later this calendar year, and I am going to have a fine time wehn both of htese new books are launched into the world – book launches are so much fun, I love them, and when the book being launched is one of mine, Woah, even better!

There is a poetry collection, about the pond at our place, and the turtle who lives in that pond. This should be easy to get ready, most of it is already written, and it’s mostly poetry that is already more or less collected together, and ready to be made into a book.

The other book to be published is another poetry related book, with some prose as well though, and photographs as there too. Hmm thinking about it, perhaps that book may need to wait a longer time. Unless … Ahh, the decisions that need to be made, I can do this!

I’ve had the thought that perhaps the idea that I move up from self-publisheing my work and actually become a publisher, may be useful, and profitable … Who knows how that might go. It’s certainly relevant to everything else I do!

At the moment having this business is feeling like a big bundle of fun things, wrapped up together with the possibility of getting money for doing what I love to do. How awesome would that be? Extremely Awesome!

Uncategorized

Writers Need Inspiration!

carolyncordon

This is something I know so well – without inspiration, the well of creativity is dry, and nothing gets written. And what is a writer without words being written? A sad creature, that’s what.

But when the inspiration comes, the words come too, and wonderful things can come of it. Inspiration can be a mysterious thing – where does it come from? Is it ‘out there’ floating around in the winds, until it crash lands in your brain, ideas come, and yes, words are written!

I’m being inspired at the moment by my current obsession. This is a thing I’ve named, The Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation. It’s a big thing, with many different aspects to what it will become, but the basis of it is the finding of rusty things which I put up on our rusty gate and frond fence at our place.

There are over 500 different rusty and/or found items there on display now, and the front fence, all 60 os so metres of it, has lots of different things there. And there are a few larger objects there as well, just our side of the front fence, where people taking a look can easily see them!

Some of the things in this Art Installation were found while going for walks, others were found when looking around my place outside. The piece below is one such ‘find’ our old front tap, which was replaced with piping that will never rust, because it’s made of PVC, a form of plastic.

So I ‘found’ that object the other day, and immediately decided it must become a part of this Art Installation! And so it is, right next to the rusty old gate that began this whole project! There are a few other metal objects there as well, found ones, and all along that big gate are many more.

I was inspired by that tap earlier today, and I wrote a poem, a brand new poem, which may be in the non fiction book I plan to write, and have launched perhaps in July next year. I’ve never written a non fiction piece as big as this one will be, but with the given time period, I reckon I can manage it!

Anyway, here is that poem, I hope you like it!

CREATIVE FLOW
The flow when it’s there is a wondrous thing
Thoughts to written down words and more –
Ideas mount up, fuse together, split apart
Merge, diverge, become greater than anything
Ever before, until l have enough, my cup full
and it stops – real world thoughts return, dreary
and mundane … but that creative flow
Captured in writing, shaped and shining,
That will remain, reminding me of my other self –
The one who’s spirit is healed and strengthened 
By the creative flow that washes over me
Every now and then, that makes me whole!
The flow when it’s there is a wonderful thing
Thoughts to written down words and more –
Ideas mount up, fuse together, split apart
Merge, diverge, become greater than anything
Ever before, until l have enough, my cup full
And real world thoughts take over again
Dreary and mundane, but that creative flow
Captured in writing, shaped and shining,
That will remain, reminding me of my other self –
The one who’s spirit is healed and strengthened 
By the creative flow that washes over me
Every now and then, and makes me whole!

Uncategorized

Enjoying Helping Others!

carolyncordon

When I took on the role of teaching creative writing at a local, I didn’t realise how much fun I would have doing it! Some of the people who came along to learn already knew a bit about creative writing, others hadn’t written anything like that since their school years, many, many years in the past.

Seeing the happiness this writing brought to these people made it all feel worthwhile, and even if these people never get anything published, it won’t matter, because they’ve done something they never thought they could do!

So I’m not just teaching creative writing, I’m helping to increase the self esteem of people who never had any thoughts that they were actually good at writing. I helped them learn that, and that is such a fine thing to have done!

I’m not interested in cleaning other people’s houses, serving people in a shop, or driving them to do their shopping, I have my own difficulties with some of those things, but creative writing? Oh yes please, I’m excited to assist others with doing this!

When a person gets an understanding of what they can actually do, when they thought they were a bit dumb, or at least not capable of creating good poems, or interesting short stories, for instance, what a buzz that gives them and what a buzz that gives me too, when they can see they’re actually quite good at doing this!

If I could go on helping other people learn to trust themselves with their ideas, and to bring out their ideas and turn them into something bigger and better, whoo hoo, I love it! When people learn to trust themselves, and to fashion their thoughts into something other people will enjoy reading every bit as much as they enjoyed writing it, what a buzz that is for them!

In my life, I’ve had assistance from a great many good writers, those who know what I now know too, that helping others to write is a fine thing to do. I could become a counsellor, but that would take up too much of my time, when I have many other things I want to accomplish. But giving an hour of my life once a week, helping others with creative writing, that is more than enough, at this time in my life.

Helping others to reach into themselves, learning the power of their words, and the way other people can enjoy hearing, or reading those words, what a fine thing it is. I could go on doing that for the rest of my life, squeezing it into my week, in between whatever else was also there for me to do.

Enjoying doing what I’m doing, helping others to do the writing that brings me a buzz, so they get that too, how awesome it is! If you like to write, and if you’re here reading this, I assume you’re a bit keen on writing too, wel lif you like it, you know how it is, the feeling when you write something good! It doesn’t happen every time, but when you get it, wow!

Helping other people, sharing what you’re good at doing and helping others to do it too, what an awesome thing. Whether it’s writing, or some other kind of thing, painting, knitting, gardening, or learning how to fix a car so it goes better, what great things these all are. Helping others, helps yourself too, and don’t we all need a bit of extra help every now and then? You bet!

So think about what you’re good at, and find those who’d like to learn how to do that too, and help them, you’ll all love it, the learner, and the teacher as well.