Weekend Writers' Retreat: more snowballs

Grandma, of Grandma's Goulash, hosts Weekend Writers' Retreat,

where we can have some fun showing off our new skills, or

reintroducing some of our old ones.

I was recently introduced to the French discipline of training writers to write better by giving them constraints—defined parameters within which to work and to write.

I was particularly taken with the "Snowball" poem wherein each line is one word, and each word is one letter longer than the previous line.

I don't think every poem has to begin with a one-letter word, which I have tried to do here, but I am just learning this new structure.

As you see, I started off with nine lines in my first Snowball, and the following three each have eleven lines. I think my mind boggles at the thought of 12-letter words, or, as they used to call them, "Ten dollar words."

I

am

out—

free,

alive,

seeing

wonders

wherever

perceived.

I

go

off,

down

steps,

toward

ravines:

admiring,

absorbing,

collecting,

discovering.

O

it

has

been

dizzy,

lovely

delight,

deciding

astrology

outsmarted

scientology.

O

on

top

they

place

padded

benches

randomly

assisting

population

continuation.