From Michael Egan:

Dear Poets,

I am inviting you all to take part in a poetic experiment. If you don’t like experiments then stop reading now. I am putting together a blog called Sudo Poetry.  This is a new poetic form and I hope to use the blog to present ‘sudo’ (as in judo) poems – purely the poems, no social commentary or critical chit chat. 

The first rule of Sudo poetry is that poets use pseudonyms.  Obviously when poems are submitted a note will be made and stored of the poet’s true name alongside the ‘sudo’ name but only the ‘sudo’ name will be displayed on the blog.

You may at this point say, ‘nah, what’s the point’ and wander away.  That’s fine, I am merely inviting submissions and may get zero submissions whereby there will be no blog (maybe the few sudo poems I have written) and no ‘sudo’ poetry.

And so ‘sudo’ poetry requires rules for me to call it a poetic form.  Here are those rules which I hope you may be moved to try out:

Sudo poems are 7 lines long.
Lines 1, 2 and 3 consist of the following syllable count: 7/10/7.
The last syllables of line 1 and 2 rhyme.
That rhyme is loosely carried over into the first syllable of line 3.
These first 3 lines are called the ‘su’ and must have some reference to either an animal or a bodily function or a wildflower.

The second section of 4 lines is called the ‘do’ and each line has six syllables.  There is no rhyming structure here but you can always impose one if you like.
The first syllable of the first 3 lines should begin with the same vowel.  So line 4,5 and 6 might each begin with an ‘a’ say or maybe an ‘e’.
The last syllable of lines 4, 5 and 6 should also end with the same consonant.  Each might stop with a t. Or even a v.
And for line 7.  The last line of the ‘do’.  This should be nothing to do with anything you’ve written about in the rest of the poem.  If the poem is about the world cup then make the last line about Harald Hardrada.  The vowel and consonant rules do not apply here.

And by following these rules you should have written a sudo. 
I will use the blog as a tool to express only Sudo poetry and as I said, I would like poets to write under pseudonyms…sudonyms…sudo-nyms. Hammer that point in.

This is a purely poetic experiment but may become an academic one.  I would also ask if anyone is bored enough to write a sudo poem and submit one, might they then pass the email on to other poets they know.  It would be good to do this for say a year and see how many sudo poems I can get on the blog. 

Here is an example of a sudo poem I have written.

daschund of our separation

when last I saw that daschund

our night was paid for by the christmas fund

round after round of schnapps downed

it slept right through our songs

ignorant of our sins

inebriated bliss

how quickly maize crops fail.

Yours sincerely

Michael Egan….I will be presenting poems on the blog as Ian McMichael.

Also can all submissions be sent to      sudopoetry@yahoo.co.uk