CPC #10: Cinq-Cinquain

Cinquain Poetry Challenge #10

The Cinq-Cinquain

First, let me start with an apology to my regular followers for not having this post ready to go on Friday. I thought it was scheduled ahead of time, but I didn’t check to be sure. I’m doing tax returns for several friends and family, plus I had craft fairs on Friday and Saturday, and my son wrecked my SUV on Wednesday, which really complicated matters. Needless to say, life around our house has been a bit interesting these past few days. But whose isn’t? Interesting is normal, right? And, just so you know, everyone was okay. There were no injuries in the accident, thank the Lord!

Now, on to poetry!

The Cinq-Cinquain is not too complicated. It is merely a string of five Crapsey Cinquains, with or without the stanza breaks. It’s in the name. The “Cinq” represents the five stanzas, and the “Cinquain” represents the five lines within each stanza.

So here in summary, is the Cinq-Cinquain:

• a series of 5 [entire] Crapsey Cinquains, 25 lines total
• syllabic count: 2-8-6-4-2 in each stanza
• written with or without breaks between stanzas
• rhyme is optional
• looks good centered on the page

Sample:

This sample is mine. I’ve already posted it to my blog, since for some reason I scheduled that post without scheduling the challenge. (Normally I schedule both at the same time. Major oops this time.) The subject is my nesting dolls, as if you couldn’t guess. I was staring at them, rather absent-mindedly, waiting for an idea to come to mind about which to write, when I decided to write about them. I used a lot of parallelism in this one, but you may do as you please in yours.

Nesting

Ladies—
five in a row,
from shortest to tallest,
pantomiming signal strength bars.
Open
second,
enter the first.
Watch the ornate crimson
of one meld into another.
Open
the third,
enter second.
Do her expressive eyes
close when we can see them no more?
Open
the fourth,
enter the third.
Breasted rose buds, blossoms,
appear more intricately now.
Open
the fifth,
enter the fourth.
Hers, the most rosy cheeks
connected by delicate smile—
Nesting.

Copyright © 2019 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

Write Your Own

Now it’s time for you to write your own Cinq-Cinquain.

1. 1. Write your poem.
   2. Publish to your blog.
   3. Come back here and click the link to add your post to the linkup.
   4. Encourage your friends to join the party!
   5. Read other people’s posts and leave a comment.

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