Cinquains That Explain

I found my way back to poetry after years of staying away because I had no one to share it with. When I published my Little Things cinquain collection, I thought that would purge it from my system and then I could focus solely on writing that sells.

I was wrong. All I did was open things so that I spend just as much time writing poetry as working on short stories and the fairy tale retellings novel I'm currently four chapters into.

While putting the collection together, I kept coming across people who like poetry and understood older forms of cinquains, but did not know about the American cinquain. So I wrote poems that explain the forms.

American cinquain

Five lines.
Developed by
Adelaide Crapsey. Count
the syllables. Two, four, six, eight,
and two.

Reverse

Now the
syllable count goes backwards, but
the basic rules for the
structure are still
the same.

Mirrored

Do it
in two stanzas.
The first is the standard
two, four, six, eight, two. Make sure it's
finished.

Now you
write a second part that takes the
syllable count in the
reverse order.
Backwards.

Butterfly

Just two
syllables in
the middle will attach
a line of eight to another
line of
eight, which begins counting down to
six again, followed by
four, and two at
the end.

Crown

A string
of five stanzas.
Like the cheese, each one stands
alone. There is a trick to the
last line.

Last line
will become first
line for the next part. It
takes a little more focus and
planning.

Planning
for this is still
much easier than for
a garland cinquain! This one is
a crown.

A crown
of flowers is
a garland, I guess. That
one has some surprises waiting.
Secrets.

Secrets
are not easy
to reveal. I'm not sure
yet how I will explain. This one
is done.

Garland

At first,
this looks like it
could be another crown
cinquain. There are six stanzas, though.
Not five.

You need
to finish each
one, but no repeat of
the last line. Things get weird with the
last part.

Each line
will be taken
from a previous piece.
First from first, second from second.
Got it?

I do
not always plan
ahead. Sometimes I like
to be surprised by how the last
turns out.

This is
the fifth, and I
did not plan this. We will
find out together what the sixth
becomes.

At first,
to finish each
from a previous piece.
To be surprised by how the last
becomes!