Cinquain

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Cinquain (pronounced SING-cane, the plural is "cinquains") is the general term applied to poetic forms using a 5-line pattern. There are specific forms within that category that are defined by specific rules and guidelines.

Crapsey cinquains

The term "cinquain" as applied by modern poets most correctly refers to a form invented by the American poet Adelaide Crapsey (William Soutar, the Scots poet, was also a prolific writer thereof.) The first examples of hers were published in 1915 in The Complete Poems, roughly a year after her death. Her cinquain form was inspired by Japanese haiku and Tanka (a form of Waka).

Crapsey's cinquains utilized an increasing syllable count in the first four lines, namely two in the first, four in the second, six in the third, and eight in the fourth, before returning to two syllables on the last line. In addition, though little emphasized by critics, each line in the majority of Crapsey cinquains has a fixed number of stressed syllables, as well, following the pattern one, two, three, four, one. The most common metrical foot in her twenty-eight published examples is the iamb, though this is not exclusive. Also, in contrast to the Eastern forms upon which she based them, Crapsey always titled her cinquains, effectively utilizing the title as a sixth line.

The Crapsey cinquain has subsequently seen a number of variations by modern poets, including:

Reverse cinquain, a form with one 5-line stanza in a syllabic pattern of two, eight, six, four, two.
Mirror cinquain, a form with two 5-line stanzas consisting of a cinquain followed by a reverse cinquain.
Butterfly cinquain, a nine-line syllabic form with the pattern two, four, six, eight, two, eight, six, four, two.
Crown cinquain, a sequence of five cinquain stanzas functioning to construct one larger poem.
Garland cinquain, a series of six cinquains in which the last is formed of lines from the preceding five, typically line one from stanza one, line two from stanza two, and so on.

Didactic cinquain

The didactic cinquain is also closely related to the Crapsey cinquain. It is an informal cinquain widely taught in elementary schools and has been featured in, and popularized by, children's media resources, including Junie B. Jones and PBS Kids. This form is also embraced by young adults and older poets for its expressive simplicity. The proscriptions of this type of cinquain refer to word count, not syllables and stresses. Ordinarily, the first line is a one-word title, the subject of the poem; the second line is a pair of adjectives describing that title; the third line is a three word phrase that gives more information about the subject; the fourth line consists of four words describing feelings related to that subject; and the fifth line is a single word synonym or other reference for the subject from line one.

Miscellanea

According to the same Japanese influence as the Crapsey cinquain, a number of more contemporary poets have devised other five line forms striving after the same tone and appeal.

Form	Description
Tetractys	is five-line poem of 20 syllables with a title, arranged in the following order: 1,2,3,4,10.with each line standing as a phrase on its own.It can be inverted,doubled etc and was created by the late English poet Ray Stebbings.
Cinqku	is a five line blending of the Cinquain and Tanka forms, created by American poet Denis Garrison. It consists of five lines with a total of 17 syllables, no title, and a surprise or turn occurring in either line 4 or line 5.
Lanterne	is a five line quintain verse shaped like a Japanese lantern with a syllabic pattern of one, two, three, four, one. Each line is usually able to stand on its own as a line, and the lanterne will not have a title.

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