For my year-end project I’ve made a small pile of snowballs, some hard-packed, some light, that I’m tossing your way.
Snowballs are a form of poetry that begins with a single-letter word and builds from there, with each consecutive word having an added letter. They can melt back down to a single-letter word again. For anyone who’s tried this, you know the challenges: single-letter words, even double-letter ones, are scarce, and assembling a set of words that ends up making some sort of sense is not easy. You find ways of making it work, bend the rules, play around. I’ve also formed each one into a concrete poem, where the shape or format illustrates the subject.
I hope they don't leave you cold. You might try catching them rather than getting hit, because one has a rock inside. (Please see Notes following the poems.) You might even try your hand at some and toss them back to me. I'd love to see what you come up with. If you want to read more, here are five I wrote in 2015.
May you thrive in 2019, friends.
NOTES
“Cat Eyes” is a conversation between a cat and its owner, who wants the cat to leave the mice alone. Guess who wins.
“LeftRight” illustrates the clash of two extremities that converge at times but never become compatible or constructive. I’ve left it strictly black and white, though the addition of red would work well. Also, like “Twiins,” it begins and ends with “I,” but for altogether different reasons.
In today’s confused mix of technology and humanity, a body shop like “Jo and Moe’s” (whose title is a snowball, as well as each line in the virtual checklist) seems a logical solution. Or it may be a case where logic no longer exists.
“Dirty Snowball” speaks — or strikes — for itself, covertly delivering a rock. In an actual snowball fight, such devices are for bullies.
In “Twiins,” I’ve placed two snowballs back-to-back that build from a single-letter word to a 13-letter one (choreographer), and return to a single-letter. The shape is meant to convey two entwining lives in the womb.
We all have heart conditions, and those conditions are individually up to us to maintain.
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