One of my favorite poem forms is the cinquain, if only because of the many variations it has. If I go more in depth about it, I love the cinquain and its variants because they're bite-sized poems that can really pack a punch. And they're really easy to take on the go with you, both as a poet and a reader. I've been known to jot down a poem, usually in the tanka variant, at really random times and in a wide variety of places. As long as I have pen and paper or my iPod to capture it, I'm good to go. And the fact that it doesn't require any sort of rhyme scheme makes it even better in my eyes.
On the
Cinquain wiki page, there are 10 variations listed. Of these 10, I have written 6 or 7 in the last year, primarily during National Poetry Month 2011. My beloved tanka is considered a variant of the cinquain, and I'm an old hat at the tanka. LOL!
According to the wiki page, a cinquain is primarily "a stanza of five lines of accentual-syllabic verse, in which the lines comprise, in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1 stresses and 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables." There was also discussion of iambic feet utilized, but I don't always follow that myself.
The variations are listed below, with definitions from the wiki page.
And now for a pair of my favorites from this form and its variations. See if you can guess which variations they are...
"stars"
glimmer
far away shine
incandescent pulses
lifetimes aweay and yet right here
divine
lovers dream, a dying embrace
perfectly captured bliss
ephemeral
fading
"Naked"
laid bare to the bone
nothing more can harm you now
safety comes too late
childhood innocence is gone
stroke the marks of womanhood
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