Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Thursday Poetry Forms (Poetry for Dummies) Week 9




Hello everyone! This is Ava and welcome to a new week of inspiration!!! Last week C.C. Champagne enlightened us about the "ins ans outs" of free verse. Lovely work C.C!! This week we will be uncovering the secret of tanka AND cinquain! These two forms are very different, but they will widen your spectrum of knowledge nevertheless! So bake some cookies, grab a glass of milk and snuggle up close to the fire.  




First up is tanka! This is why I decided to do a double post today: A haiku is a short version of a tanka. I wrote about haiku a couple weeks ago. The syllable counts for tanka are 5-7-5-7-7 and the rules are exactly like haiku except that tankas do not have to be about nature: they can be about ANYTHING!!!!




So that is it for tanka! Now for the fresh and unknown world of cinquain. Now do not be intimidated by the word because this a very easy from to do. Even I can do it (and I am not the best at doing different forms! I only do free verse!) So I am not going to go into the history today but more of the mechanics and some examples.




Cinquains are very simple. The y do not need to rhyme and they consist of 5 lines. The first line has 2 syllables, the second line has 4 syllables, the third has 6, they fourth had eight, and the last have two.  This is pretty easy right? So, these are the rules for cinquain. I encourage you all to write one and try it out because this form is a lot of fun!!! There are other variations of this such as quatrain which has slightly different rules but is particularly easy to master.


Line 1-  2 Syllables
Line 2 - 4 Syllables
Line 3 - 6 Syllables
Line 4 - 8 Syllables
Line 5 - 2 Syllables


I hope this lead you farther down the long road and poetry forms. Please leave a comment in the comments box about what you want to see and what forms you are interested in. If you write a cinquain, I would be delighted to read it. Tune in next week when C.C Champagne is your tour guide. Write on!





8 comments:

Divine de Flame said...

thanks for this info! I've been doing a lot of hiakus lately. I'm looking forward to playing with tanka cinquains!

Kodjo Deynoo said...

I really enjoy the fact that such a sight exist to help broaden my horizon on the many forms of poetry

Zoe said...

Hi! I have been meaning to come and visit here for a LONG time - but life got in the way of all poetic pursuits. Glad to finally make it! And what an exciting week! Cinquains are delightful, aren't they! I recently used cinquains to introduce 7,8 and 9 year old children to writing their first poems and it was extremely successful, so I agree they are a great exercise for any poet (no matter how young or old!)

Morning said...

would love to try my hand on it.

love this one,
Ava.

Hope said...

thank you for the info I like to try different forms as well :)

Ava said...

Thank you for all the positive feedback!

Ava said...

Thank you for all the positive feedback!

Anonymous said...

Great work, Ava!!! Have to give these a try! *big smile*