In the previous post I talked about the American Cinquain form created by Adelaide Crapsey and how it is a five line poem with a format of either syllables 2/4/2/8/2 or iambs of 1/2/3/4/1. You can try your hand with the first of our Cinquain Poetry Prompts that came out this past Monday. And don’t get concerned about iambs if you’re not a poetry nerd. Remember ‘nerd’ to me is a good word. Think of iambs as how many syllables are stressed in a line of poetry. Like in music there is something called meter or a beat. Or the tick tock of a clock and the tock is the stressed part. (I know, I’m over doing it. But I do that sometimes.)
Although syllables and iambs are important, the actual content is even more so. Nature. Emotions. Even an event. Here is my example:
OLD DAYS
See how
The sun rises,
Breaking over beauty,
Filling the senses with heaven
Then fades.
It can be nature, emotion, or an event. I didn’t plan for it that way. It just ended up like that after I finished and read it for the final time.
You see, the first four lines are all linked with a purpose. They are telling a story, feeling, or thought, building and building. Then in the final line, what I built is broken. Yes, there was a time where beauty and more would bring joy each morning, increasing each time, but in the end, it all fades away and I was left with nothing. This could be about a literal sunrise or perhaps a lost relationship.
It doesn’t always have to do with emotions. One reason Adelaide Crapsey’s poetry deals so much with emotions and her mortality was because of her tuberculosis at such a young age. She was only 36 when she passed.
Once you have your topic for your poem, write it. Then the work begins. The creativity begins. You look for the perfect word to give the most impact, to deliver as much of what you’re trying to relay. With so few lines and syllables, much like a Tanka, you need to be precise. Practice makes perfect. Althought, not every poem needs to be perfect. If you tried to do that, you might never share a poem with others because you’re afraid you didn’t achieve what you or others expected. Believe me, I know. I have dozens of incomplete poetry drafts sitting here in my blog I’ve never posted.
YOUTH
But me
They cannot touch,
Old Age and death … the strange
And ignominious end of old
Dead folk!
ROMA AETERNA
The sun
Is warm to-day,
O Romulus, and on
Thine olden Palatine the birds
Still sing.
NIAGRA
How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water bangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon.
THE GUARDED WOUND
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!
“The result is a form of poetry that is short, meditative, imagistic, and above all delicate—a quality regarded as beautiful in and of itself.” litcharts.com
© 2025- Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
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