Over the pervious two posts I’ve explained how to write an American Cinquain as developed by the early 20th century poet Adelaide Crapsey. With the style of poetry being named “American” Cinquain or a Crapseian, then there must be other types of cinquain. I don’t plan to get into a lot of detail, but I thought it would be useful to give some information. You may have written a cinquain and not realized it.
Including the American Cinquain, there are six other styles traditionally recognized. Although I suppose there would actually be seven.
Standard Cinquain
This is the original five line stanza poem with no syllable restrains and included a rhyming pattern such as ababb, abaab, or abccb. The poems are usually made up of multiple stanzas. The Standard has its beginning in medieval France.
Reverse cinquain
The reverse cinquain’s form is all in its name… the reverse of the American Cinquain. The syllables are 2/8/6/4/2, the reverse of the normal American Cinquain.
Didactic cinquain
This type of cinquain does not use a syllable count but instead uses a word count of 1/2/3/4/1. This form might be one many are familiar with as it is often taught to grade-school children.
Butterfly cinquain
The butterfly cinquain is a nine poem with the syllables being 2/4/6/8/2/8/6/4/2.
Mirror cinquain
This style is the American Cinquain of 2/4/6/8/2 a blank space then 2/8/6/4/2. The blank space separates the stanzas as opposed to the Butterfly cinquain which shares a line, the 2 syllable fifth line.
Crown cinquain
Here we go. A big one. Five stanzas of American cinquain. Yes, that’s right. 25 lines of poetry. Blank spaces are between the stanzas.
Garland cinquain
This style is not of the American Cinquain. It is from the Standard Cinquain. There are six stanzas. The first five are unique, but of course linked in meaning like any other poem. The sixth stanza is made of lines from the first five stanzas… line 1 is from line 1 of the first stanza, line 2 is from line 2 of second stanza and so on. This sounds like one we’ll be doing soon for fun.
And those are the Magnificent Seven Cinquains…not including the American one…which would make it eight.
© 2025- Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
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