What is a Cinquain

In honor of National Poetry Month I am going to describe and show examples of different poetry. Today the form featured is cinquain.

In the early 1900’s Adelaide Crapsy read different tanka and haiku and so influenced she developed her own poetic system she called a cinquain. These poems consisted of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8,2 in five lines.

The most famous of her cinquains from her book The Complete Poems is:
TRIAD
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow... the hour
Before the dawn... the mouth of one
Just dead.

The cinquain I am doing today has this form:
Cinquains have five lines
Line 1: Title (noun) - 1 word
Line 2: Description - 2 words
Line 3: Action - 3 words
Line 4: Feeling (phrase) - 4 words
Line 5: Title (synonym for the title) - 1 word

Jon
Good, helpful
Plays with kids
Calm, loves his children
Father

If you want to create a cinquain tale on line click here.
If you want to a cinquain activity for you or your students click here.