[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

hopscotch
in button boots
Adelaide grabs her ring
a child's game from 1910
cinquain

There. I've written one as well. I have to say I'm actually rather pleased with it, though I'm not impressed by the one Yolanda cited for the exact reasons Stephen pointed out.

I've a habit of comparing poetry to everything except poetry, but I see no reason to stop now, at least when a good analogy presents itself.

My mother has a book on the history and practice of formal Japanese flower arrangement. One of the most classic arrangements, deceptively simple, is a single blossom in a single container. The Western classic of a single red rose in an attractive cut-crystal bud vase qualifies as an arrangement of this sort, and while I'm not recalling the name, it's not important.

What is important is that, the same as a single rose in a crystal vase is a flower arrangement, something as simple as a cinquain is a poem, and can often be a very good poem, though when it's mediocre or bad, it's harder to find fault with than a more elaborate form like a sonnet.

I have to say, having just written one, that I like the cinquain. It's a nice little chunky deco-style bud vase with lots of sharp right angles, great for dropping a flower into.

Having just defended it, I'll attack it as well. The trouble with such simplicity is that aside from being a good thing for children and other beginners to start playing with, it can also attract poseurs, who may occasionally pull off a good cinquain every once in a while through random luck, but couldn't write even a mediocre sonnet if their lives depended on it. Which isn't actually the fault of the cinquain, or Adelaide Crapsey, but of the poseurs. Not that you'd hear them admit it.

Part of the beauty of such simple forms is that they can be written off the cuff by a skilled poet or even a talented amateur on the spur of the moment, the same as you can throw a rose in a vase when you know you'll have guests and don't have time for something more elaborate or simply don't want it.

Cinquains don't rhyme, but even limericks, which do, would not be well suited for writing Paradise Lost. Does that make limericks and cinquains bad forms? No. It just makes them small forms, suited for small things, elegant or funny as the case may be.