I don't think it's the "Great Poem" bar so much as the difficulty bar--consider the double-dactyl, which was invented much more recently than the cinquain, but's generally held in higher regard at least by formalists--though admittedly, I know of no double-dactyl journals.
Besides which, while you can get two poets to concur that any given poem is a "Great Poem," getting a roomful to do so is a bit more of a trick. The best you're likely to do is to get the detractors to agree that the poem is a very good poem that's ridiculously famous and popular.
On the business earlier of summing down Paradise Lost into a haiku, a friend taught me a similar game where she summed down famous poems into limericks, and I don't see why we couldn't do that with the cinquain.
However, the trouble with such things is that they at most give you the cliff notes or a quip, not the feel of the original.
|