The Cinquain Challenge: Form 7—The Garland Cinquain

This week, we’re looking at yet another form of cinquain—the Garland Cinquain. Again, it uses either a Crapsey Form 1 or a Crapsey Form 2 as a base, but this time it consists of six separate cinquain verses. The first five verses stand alone, but are linked by the poetical theme. The sixth verse is made up of lines from the verses that came before it, usually taking its first line from the first verse, the second line from the second verse, the third line from the third verse and so on.

For those of you who are new to this series, a cinquain is a five-line poem that has a set number of syllables (or word types) per line. Sometimes the title of a cinquain acts as a sixth line. Cinquains were invented by Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet who was inspired by the rules of Japanese poetry to create her own poetical form, the cinquain.

Here’s an example, originally written for a poetry collection set to come out later this year:

Death of Dreaming

Written on April 1, 2014, this garland cinquain is about the darker things of life.

Troll kin

From the dark come

Slide from shadows and night

Snatching their prey from shadowed light

Nightmares

Nightmares

In darkness come

Fleeing the new-born day

Treading our sleep when we seek rest

Goblins

Goblins

Knife-edged cruelty

Trait’rous beasts of the night

But able to emerge at day

Hunters

Hunters

Stalking our dreams

Snaring our peace and rest

Stealing the dreams of a lifetime

Hopeless

Hopeless

We toss and turn

Fighting them in our sleep

Alone, we try to defeat them

Our fears

Troll kin

In darkness come

Trait’rous beasts of the night

Stealing the dreams of a lifetime

Our fears

Why don’t you give it a try? Try writing at least one garland cinquain for each day of the week. They don’t take a lot of time, but they can be a bit tricky. Here’s one way you might want to approach them:

• Decide on a topic;
• Think of words, phrases, feelings and ideas that relate to your topic and work out the order you want to express those things in;
• Work out how to express each idea in the right number of syllables for the line it’s on;
• Write your cinquain;
• Check there are the right number of syllables on each line; and
• Centre the poem on your page.

Or you can just write them as you go, letting inspiration take you where it will, but remember to check your syllables and centre your poem at the end.

Enjoy!