I'll admit that I wasn't particularly thrilled with this challenge. Don't get me wrong, I think Adelaide Crapsey's cinquain poems are genius. I love her work so much that I even visited her grave when I stopped to visit the graves of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY (my hometown).
In its simplest form, Crapsey's ciquain follows a syllabic pattern of 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 2.
However, the cinquain has long been used by (some) classroom teachers to "teach poetry" and in this form, it is most didactic and unpoetic. Yes, I said it. The Wikipedia entry on the elevenie reads like all those cinquain handouts I so loathe. This is the structure they recommend for this form.
| Row | Words | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A thought, an object, a colour, a smell or the like |
| 2 | 2 | What does the word from the first row do? |
| 3 | 3 | Where or how is the word of row 1? |
| 4 | 4 | What do you mean? |
| 5 | 1 | Conclusion: What results from all this? What is the outcome? |
Here is the way the cinquain is taught in schools. The purpose is generally "to help learners stretch and develop their creative writing skills in a structured formula while reviewing parts of speech." Instead of syllables, it uses word count, so it looks just like the elevenie.
Image from Free Cinquain Poem.
Here is a cinquain of Crapsey's. Note that it follows none of the conventions described above.
Niagara
Seen on a Night in November
How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon.
I really don't understand how this beautiful poetic form morphed into a tool for teaching parts of speech. Suffice it to say that in calling this poem a "German cinquain," I was not very excited and a bit nervous about this challenge. At first, I tried to tell a story with my poems, but that approach generally didn't work for me. I also played around with adding German words. I wrote a lot of crap, but I also wrote a few poems I'm relatively pleased with. I'm sharing three poems, and because I like to break the rules, one of them is a reverse elfchen (1-4-3-2-1). The first poem is about my dad.
Gesundheit!
Our answer
to his loud
full-bodied and thunderous
sneezes
Peace?
Not yet.
Some say never.
Pray. Don't lose faith.
Hope.
Truths—
Climate change is real.
Life is short.
I love
you.
Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2023. All rights reserved.
You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below.
- Tanita Davis
- Mary Lee Hahn
- Sara Lewis Holmes
- Kelly Ramsdell
- Laura Purdie Salas
- Liz Garton Scanlon
Do take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Michelle Kogan. Happy poetry Friday, friends!
