Tips For Writing Poetry

Some people come to poetry on retirement. When you retire you have many spare hours to fill, and some think of trying something new. That 'new' thing for some is poetry. That brings problems though, what to write about, how to write, what poetic style?

To some, a poem must rhyme. People remember poetry from their school years, and think 'The Man From Snowy River' is what a poem must be. This poem of AB 'Banjo' Paterson's is a fine poet in the 'Bush Ballad' style, well known to Australians. Others may remember William Wordsworth with his 'Host of Golden Daffodils'. But poems can come in many other forms too.

There is the villanelle, haiku, ode, clerihew, sonnet and a thousand more.

The poetic form I want to talk about here is one I created - the Cordonostic poem'. I created it when I was helping out a Primary School teacher, teaching her students a little about writing poetry. It was a mixed class, and the main interests for the students was either shoes, puppies, kittens, or football, depending on gender and inclination. Few of the students were interested in creative writing, let alone writing poetry.

I thought about it and decided to set a challenge to the students, by giving them a poetic form that used their counting skills as well as their English skills. The Cordonostic poem was my answer. This is what it is all about.

This new poetic form - the 'Cordonostic' poem - was invented at 10.00 am 18 September 2006. The form must have an even number of verses, and is based on syllable counts as follows:

2 verses -

1st verse:

· 1st line - 3 syllables

· 2nd line - 5 syllables

· 3rd line - 7 syllables

2nd verse:

· 1st line - 7 syllables

· 2nd line - 5 syllables

· 3rd line - 3 syllables

Can be continued as wanted, keeping to 3/5/7;7/5/3 syllable count for further verses.

Can be rhyming or non-rhyming, on any subject matter.

The Cordonostic poem must contain at least one line of enjambment (Enjambment is when a linguistic unit (phrase or sentence) in poetry runs over the line break. Enjambment is the opposite of end stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with the line length).

An example of Cordonostic poetry:

Ananka

Pregnant dog

her tummy filling.

Our hopes and dreams are rising -

will the puppies live up to

dreams, or not? Only

time will tell.

and another one:

Frog

Swimming in

our pool just above

the top stair - he didn't know

chlorine was so dangerous.

I moved him to our

pond's safety

and I hope

he will be safe there

with our fish, and other frogs.

Over the years many frogs

have been moved like this.

They croak 'thanks'.

So that's a Cordonostic poem - I leave it up to you to take it somewhere else!