Take five
Get to grips with the cinquain to give your poem a real chance in our competition with advice from Alison Chisholm
Alison Chisholm
POETRY LAUNCH
The next Writing Magazine poetry competition is for the American cinquain, devised by Adelaide Crapsey early in the 20th century. This is a delightful short form of poetry; one of those that takes moments to learn and years to master.
The cinquain, as its name suggests, has five lines. Although in earlier times these had to be metrical, modern cinquains no longer need to be written in a specific metre. The shape of the poem is formed by a syllable count, with two syllables in the first line, four in the second, six in the third, eight in the fourth, and then the final line returns to two syllables.