While wandering through the cyber-archives of the Washington Post "Style Invitational" contest, I came upon two different forms of poetry that I had never heard of before.

The first is the "cinquain" which dictionary.com defines simply as a five-line stanza (which seems right) but which the contest people describe as a "revoltingly precious poem in successive lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables (which seems nuts) and they give the following examples:

Bob Dole
Old but virile;
Tyrannosaurus Sex,
O, dark, rapacious veloci-
Rapture!

and

Oh, dear,
Sylvia Plath.
Down went your spirits and
Up went the gas, and now life you
No hath.


Bizarre, no?

The other form was called a "poed" although the only entry dictionary.com could come up with was "PO'ed - extremely angry" which, all things considered, might not be totally off the mark. The contest describes a poed as a four-line poem with the 1st line consisting of 6 1-syllable words, the 2nd line consisting of 3 2-syllable words, the 3rd line consisting of 2 3-syllable words, and the last line consisting of a single 6-syllable word. And if that's not enough, there has to be at least one rhyme. The example they gave:

Mom, a Jew. Pop, a WASP.
Easter, Pesach, Christmas.
Communion, tallises,
Psychoanalysis.


Call me twisted but I think that's brilliant.

So! Are we up for this? Might anyone care to take up the challenge and try his or her hand at either of these beastly poetic formats? (Kalleh, I'm expecting at least two of each from you!) I would submit a few myself right now but I'm not even supposed to be up on this damn board today! Only came up to post my DD elsewhere.

While not officially declaring myself a monarch of any sort for this thread, I will say that any entry meeting the criteria, regardless of beauty, relevance, or sense made, will rate at least a "B"!

Best of luck, everyone.

I find this a bit strange
Harder making arrange
Difficult rhymingly
Someothertime-ingly!

Oh well
I can't do this.
Writing cinquains is harder
Than you might think; but simpler than
DDs.

There's a variation on the cinquain poem that I sometimes use in teaching ESOL. I've had some success with it with quite elementary classes.

It's a five line poem with this structure

Line 1: NOUN or A NOUN or THE NOUN
Line 2: Line 1 + IS or ARE + adjective
Line 3: Line 2 + another adjective
Line 4: Line 3 + another adjective
Line 5 : Synonym (possibly humourous alternative) for line 1

These few examples were all written by students who had been doing English for only a few months, in some cases weeks.

Cows
Cows are fat
Cows are fat, healthy
Are fat, healthy, slow
Fat, healthy, slow, good
Beef.

Birmingham
Birmingham is exciting
Birmingham is exciting, expensive
Exciting, expensive, crowded
Exciting, expensive, crowded, big
City.

Eyes
Eyes are beautiful
Eyes are beautiful, round
Are beautiful, round, sensitive
Beautiful, round sensitive, important
Organ.

Summer
Summer is sunny
Summer is sunny, hot
Is sunny, hot, beautiful
Sunny, hot, beautiful,a good time
For a holiday.

And my own personal favourite from any of my students

Sheep
Sheep are cute
Sheep are cute, quiet
Are cute, quiet, warm
Cute, quiet, warm, lovely
Food.

Vescere bracis meis.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

This heat makes my head ache
Travel ? Perhaps mistake !
Suddenly, elation -
Acclimitisation !

Air clear ? Oh dear, sky fear.
Pilot error ? Terror !
Overwrought, panicky
Aerodynamically.

These are harder to do than I expected.

Vescere bracis meis.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

TrossL, that's one of the best uses of the cinquain form that I have yet seen. Whoever wants to be king of the thread can but I give this a definite A+ - not as a cinquain but as a poem.

Bob

Vescere bracis meis.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

Revenant, I am dying to meet you. Could it be I've known you in another life?

Thanks, TrossL! Thanks a heap!

As you can see, I did stick to my schedule (and, by doing so, got a lot of other writing done elsewhere; it's coming along nicely, thank you very much) BUT I forgot about this particular thread and so (head hanging in shame) I have nothing prepared.

Actually, I have a couple of things half-prepared stuck in a book somewhere from about five days ago.

In short, then: TrossL, while your beach scene poetry richly deserved B.H.'s praise (which I definitely second) your post-coital piece was nothing short of brilliant! First off, while for some reason it wasn't present in the examples I provided (not my own) you've introduced rhyming to the formula. In my book, this is a huge improvement and will make cinquain writing that much more of a challenge. Oh, joy!

I prefer the poeds since they are harder still and promise (he says with a slight shudder) to come up with something by next week.


Oh, and one other thing. I AM NOT proclaiming myself Lord & Master of this thread and WILL NOT be providing any commentaries which might be construed as negative. THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that no Wordcrafter shall have the right to wimp out on attempting one of these buggers with the excuse that he or she fears the Wrath of Strolin since it ain't gonna happen, Gang.

(Well, maybe with Shufitz. Just once. And then only because he specifically expressed a certain skin-thinnedness in this regard. And then it will be only slightly caustic and, overall, supportive, helpful, kind, thrifty, obedient, etc etc etc.)

.

[This message was edited by is completely nuts! on Thu Jun 5th, 2003 at 7:49.]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TrossL:
A cinquain is NOT supposed to rhyme. It's supposed to be in free verse form.....Actually, that makes them about a million times easier to write....

---

True,(sigh) true. I cannot help but feel that the absence of rhyme devalues any poetic form, but perhaps not by a factor of a million. Today, while mucking about in the kitchen, (I won't put on airs by calling it cooking) I tuned in to a radio programme of poetry readings. After half an hour, I had not detected any rhymes. As I shut off the radio in mid-programme, I shouted "Those aren't poems...they're short stories!" ....I just gotta get out more...Phew...

D.H., I totally agree. I am a regular at poetry clubs and am usually the only person presenting anything besides "free verse." (The quotation marks there are to denote distain.)

Some moron goes up to the mike, strikes a serious poetic pose and then intones:

Darkness,
Sliding silkily over forgotten memories.
Cardboard furniture from a non-marriage of non-lovers.
Green verbs, blue nouns, purple conjunctions
All in a race for meaning.
But awaken!
A new dawn breaks!!

And then stops and poses again as if to say "OK, that's it for that one, you can applaud now." The audience dutifully responds with lukewarm clapping and the the "poet" begins another piece.

I've been bounced out of more than one place like this for throwing raw fish.

[This message was edited by C J Strolin on Mon Apr 14th, 2003 at 14:56.]

OK, here's the deal.

If cinquains aren't supposed to rhyme, they're really just a slightly more structured form of (Brrr!) "free verse." I very much enjoy TrossL's rhyming cinquain series poetry (for lack of a better term) but have been too busy this past week to try to even come close to matching it.

So, to take another approach, I thought I'd try a cinquain/poed pairing, two poems each correct in its own format but on one subject. (And B.H. is right - those poeds are harder than they first appear!)


The Land of the Free...

Iraq,
Saddam Hussein,
His Republican Guard.
Easy. But where do we go next?
Iran?


...And the Home of the Brave

One war down. What will be
Bush's foreign planners'
Ultimate creation?
Mega-escalation?

I quite like some free verse, though that doesn't mean I approve of it all the time. The trouble with it is that no matter how much work the poet puts in, no matter how he agonises over every word and line, there will always remain the suspicion that he dashed it off in thirty seconds because it doesn't look or sound like a "real" poem.

The poem below is by the current Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.
A couple of lines rhyme towards the end but I suspect that was an accident.

-----------------------------------------------

Diving by Andrew Motion

The moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe


flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push


an easy way through
would be dust or dew
in the world behind
if that mattered at all,
which is no longer true,
with its faces and cries.

-------------------------------------------

God save us from academics !
Well CJ, when the job becomes vacant again, would you like it ?

Vescere bracis meis.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

I also can appreciate some "free verse" but it is similar in the way I appreciate the sound of wind chimes. It can be pleasing to the ear and, at the same time, make about as much sense. For example:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BobHale:
flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push

---

I mean, pul-eeze!

And when the job comes open again, sure, I'll take it. The country (yours or mine) could use a Poet Laureate who appreciates the value of limericks, double dactyls, poeds, etc etc etc.

seashells
black sand
foamy breaking waves
footprints washed away
beach

surf
eternal dependable
crashing wavering returning
soft POUNDING whisper
wet beach

Fabulous!! Superb!! Magnificent!! Stupendous!! Marvellous!! Wonderful!! Tremendous!!

(but then again I'm biased...)

[[Aug 30, '03 edit: The above gushing review was for some writing which has since been deleted by its original poster. Those skimming through old threads, new members in particular, may be confused by an occasional lack of coherence. Hang in there; you'll get over it.]]


I might have titled the first one "Good Mourning" rather then just present the morning/mourning homonym as you did but that's just me...)

[This message was edited by C J Strolin on Sat Aug 30th, 2003 at 11:39.]

or
"Two Can Play at That Game"
(and often do)

Pressing
Lips against lips,
I plumb the honeyed depths
Of your lush femininity.
Ahhhh... Sweet!

Oh man... that'll start the tounges to wagging for sure. (No pun intended, but I'm laughing!)