216/365/Poetry and Form

Mali’s cinquain reminded me that on my poetry shelf I have a book by John Hollander called Rhyme’s Reason. The whole book is about poetry forms, with examples, explaining the rules. He even explains the rules, in part, in the form itself:

His explanation for cinquains is different from what I found online (and what Mali did, which matched what I found online). Hollander begins by stating, “The cinquain in older French verse was any kind of five-line stanza, but in English…”:

Cinquains
Have lines of four
Syllables, six, and eight,
Ending, as starting, with a line
Of two;

But when
Iambs align

To the trained ear these seem

To form a line of twelve, and then

Of ten.

Cinquains
In English verse

Were devised by a bard

Whose name (alas!) was Adelaide

Crapsey.