Cordonostic Poems - The Poetic Form I Created Myself ...

The bird in the photo may be a suitable poetry prompt for you, for creating your first Cordonostic poem, or you may have your own things you want to write about. I may have a think about the bird, and create a new Cordonostic poem, especially for the bird, and this post, fun! If I do write that poem, it will be under the one I wrote some time ago, which is underneath the explanation of what a Cordonostic poem is, below.

This form came into being around fifteen years ago, and while I am proud of what I did, I feel I haven't done enough to spread the word about it, so I'm happy to be sharing it here, with other poets here at Vocal, and further away, if it spreads the way I'd like it to! It feels like shooshing my child off to its first job, in some ways, but a needed stage.

So here are the details about what the Cordonostic poem is, and how to write it. I am presenting a small workshop at a writing group I attend regularly, and hope they all enjoy learning about this poetic form!

Cordonostic Poetry

When you create your own form of poetry, why not go the whole hog, and name it after yourself!

So yes, the Cordonositic form of poetry was named, by me, using my surname of Cordon. I came up with the form when thinking about the students at the local Primary School, Mallala Primary, who prefer Maths over English. So I came up with a form similar perhaps to the Japanese forms of Haiku and Senryu, but different …

The details below, I hope, will give you enough information to get your poetic head around what it is all about.

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The Cordonostic poem is based on syllable counts, with the first line having three syllables, the second line having five syllables, and the third and final line of the first stanza (verse) having seven syllables.

For the second stanza, start with seven syllables for the first line, then five syllables for the second line, and three again for the last line. For the third stanza, follow the stanza count as the first stanza, and for the fourth stanza, follow the second stanza, and so on. A Cordonostic poem can be any length, from two verses to a whole novel's work of verses, if desired.

For this "workshop", consider your favourite season - whether Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, and spend some time writing words, phrases, sentences, about that season.

Then using these words and phrases about your chosen season, and other words too, if needed, and bearing in mind the necessary syllable counts for each line, it is time to write your Cordonostic poem. No need to concern yourself about the title yet, but if you need a title use your chosen Season.

You don’t have to concern yourself about the poem title first though, often you need to finish a poem to see what it’s about, and so what the title could be. For the final title of your poem, choose something relevant to what you have written.

The poem below was written after I had done some research into why leaves changed their colours, and I feel it is a fitting tribute to the wondrous way Autumn brings on this colourful phenomenon.

Photosynthesis

trees, their leaves

red, orange, yellow

lovely, chemically changed

trees and branches a backdrop,

and a gallery

for the leaves

wind-released

they drift off downward,

as ground becomes a carpet

then leaves, in decay, produce

nutrients, and trees,

fed, grow more -

trunk, and leaves

then blossom, perhaps

and after blossom, come seeds

and then, wondrous, welcome fruit.

the process goes on,

always will,

so long as

trees get the water

they need, fruit will come again.

autumn - colour, winter - rest

spring - blossom, then fruit -

nature’s way …

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Flight of Fancy

Oh seagull

do your dreams of flight

interupt the day to day -

fighting for morsels of food

when the sky is there

calling you

I dream too

of flight, and cherish

my own dreams, while day to day

life is in my face, constant,

as dreams fade away

to nothing ...

Or do they?

there will come the day,

soon, when birthday promised gift

will take me up high, gliding

as seagull too glides -

I'll be free!