It’s time for a new poetry style and prompt that begins next week.

The Cinquain or more precisely the American Cinquain.

My Example:

Old Days

See how
The sun rises,
Breaking over beauty,
Filling the senses with heaven
Then fades.

You can see the pattern above is as follows…

5 Lines with each a given number of syllables as

2
4
6
8
2

An iambic foot with the stresses by line being

1
2
3
4
1

For the first line of the poem there will be two syllables with one stressed syllable and that one being the second one, which establishes the pattern.

The Cinquain most commonly used is the American Cinquain created by Adelaide Crapsey. Although she did not write down specific rules for composing one of her Cinquains, we have a form from people who have studied her poetry and have found commonalities in her works, those being the syllable and iambic foot, stresses pattern, although the iambic foot is not a requirement. The other characteristic is storytelling, compacting a feeling or scene into a few short lines and syllables.

Two Adelaide Crapsey Cinquain poems:

November Night

Listen . . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

 

Trapped

Well and
If day on day
Follows and weary year
On year . . . and ever days and years . . .
Well?

 

 

© 2025-  Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.