Look! Poetry

Since I have no fine motor skills to speak of, I decided that I would give writing a(nother) try. However, fiction and prose tend to overwhelm me unless I have a specific topic. Thus, I am taking my own advice, doled out while I taught my lovely 7th graders, and am trying poetry. Short, accessible with many forms, and infinitely variable, poetry may be the creative outlet I need.

My first attempts, I have decided, will be in using traditional forms - free verse is way too wide open for someone as OC as me. I'm beginning with the triolet, a French form from the late Middle Ages. Only eight lines long, with two lines repeated throughout, the triolet is a cousin to the round (think "Row, Row, Row Your Boat") and has a satisfying circuity of sound and thought.

As I have been feeling a bit off lately (for lack of a better term - I tried googling "how to tell if you're depressed" today; good news is I'm probably not, bad news is that means I'm just cranky), my first triolet is a bit self-indulgent:

Sometimes I want to curl up in a ball.
I wish I knew why.
I feel angry, sad, petty and small.
Sometimes I want to curl up in a ball.
And yet, through it all...
While I fume and mope and cry
I wish I knew why
Sometimes I want to curl up in a ball.

My second attempt is more inherently joyful (though perhaps with a touch of melancholy) as the subject is Elizabeth. Coincidentally (or perhaps I just have a small vocabulary) both poems use ball as one of the major rhymes.

My daughter's favorite word is ball.
And yesterday she began to run.
Didn't she just learn to crawl?
My daughter's favorite word is ball.
She's gone from small and soft to sturdy and tall.
Climbing, dancing, never done.
And yesterday she began to run.
My daughter's favorite word is ball.

Hmm... looks like I was right - poetry is fun!