Get Your Cinquain!?

Another segment of my poetry month, as I can't wait for April and national poetry month, plus I feel that poetry should be appreciated all year round.



And this is just one other poetry type which I'm going to be blogging about. The last post was on haiku poetry, and now today, I'm going to blog about the cinquain.



I love this poetry type as there is so much variation, and in my poems below, you can see what variation I prefer and have learnt to write in--so let's discuss that one first.



Fun Fact!

The cinquain was inspired by the Japanese haiku and tanka poetry types.



There are five lines in a cinquain--that's a basic rule, and I'm not sure what to call the kind of cinquain I do. Maybe it's the basic form or perhaps it's just the English version or the one they teach in schools.



Line 1: is one word (the title)

Line 2: is two words; describes the title

Line 3: is three words; tells the action

Line 4: is four words; express the emotion

Line 5: Line 1 (can be different, something in the lexical field of Line 1: Tree-Oak)



I like the above structure, and it gives off a nice finished poem, at the end of the blog post there will be 3 of my cinquain poems.



Another common cinquain has a syllabic pattern which goes, two, four, six, eight, two, much like the above structure, but counting syllables (because poetry is after all, all about sound).



This is what Wikipedia has to say about the different cinquain variations.





Hyperlink Here!

I hope that you can all see this grid...if not, just click the title box up there and take a read. It's a really good grid and from this you can play around with a cinquain of your own (I make it sound like it's a little pet or something, but it needs to be cared for, just like any other poem or piece of prose) and you might like it!



Some of my cinquain poetry.



Snow,

Crystal flakes,

Fall, fast, slow,

Blanket white electric joy,

Snow.



Flower,

Red, black,

A rooted dancer,

Small pockets of peace,

Poppy.



Bird,

Sky's parcel,

Flying with ease,

Freedom through its wings,

Aviator.



Feel free to post your own cinquain poems in the comments box, I would love to see what you come up with.



-Joseph