[Gregory Dowling]

I thought everyone had been very restrained in resisting the temptation of Ms Crapsey's surname. I'm glad it's now been suitably celebrated in Chris's cinquain.

[VictoriaGaile]

I really find it hard to believe that the cinquain is defined solely by its syllable count any more than the haiku or tanka are.

If Ms. Crapsey were attempting to transpose those forms into English, then presumably the additional requirements of those forms would transpose as well, would they not?

It seems more similar to the tanka than the haiku. Somebody doublecheck me on this, but as I recall, the tanka is meant to be a five line poem with a sort of hinge in the middle, so that lines 1/2/3 convey one image, lines 3/4/5 a different image, and the skill is in crafting line 3 and the two images so that the whole works together as a pleasing and thought-provoking juxtaposition. Sort of a compressed sonnet, with a turn at line 3.

Looking at the cinquain, I'd incline towards transposing this requirement into a turn/hinge on line 4.

Rather than bash the form for trivial gimmickry and prove it by writing a bad poem in 3 minutes, why not see what it can offer by writing the best cinquain you can, finding a way to use the form to contribute to the poem?

A cinquain challenge, perhaps? Post not only the best cinquain you can write, but post along with it an explication of what the form offers and how you used that to strengthen the poem?

[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.

[Janet Kenny]

I'll throw in a small bomb that will make no impression. I have yet to be persuaded that the English interpretation of a Haiku carries any of the quality of the Japanese original. Those who specialise in it seem to me to be lost in some competitive world of superior inside knoowledge which hasn't, in my opinion, added a whit to English poetry.

I have read very good short English poems which claim to be Haiku and are mercifully free of the self-imposed "Haiku rules". I understand why those inspired by a Japanese experience feel connected to it but it seems that poets must use the same honesty as scientists when it comes to forms which grow from language. Our language has strong impulses which make nonsense of structures grown out of a language that is apparently completely unrelated in any way.

This is the closest link I have found so far:
Scythian link to Indo European languages and Japanese?

Janet

[Alexander Grace]

I'm sorry, but I think that that could be the most amazing thing ever - a reworking of Paradise Lost in limmerick form. Or senryu. Or how about in palindrome (I.Q. level required to even attempt this I estimate to be around 225, but by then you'd be too clever to understand the original, on the principle that lawn mowers mow grass very badly when powered by jet engines). I recently saw a stage adaptation that had its moments, so if a poem can be made into a play, surely transforming it into another poetic form would be simple. My tongue IS in my cheek.

However, the idea of trying to take the essence of Milton's work and put it in senryu/cinquian (tomato, tomato - let's call the whole thing off. Sigh, that one doesn't work when you write it down) isn't necessarily a bad one. Finding moments of ku in the poetry rather than attempting to reproduce the narrative would I think be the best approach - possibly modernising the concepts, thus acknowledging how recent (recent) western interest in other cultures has been. Here's a silly thirty second attempt at condensing the whole of paradise lost into one senryu (I am in a funny mood tonight. You may have noticed that I am prone to funny moods).

Earth, virgin wasteland
man and angel stake their false claims
then waste it again

Alex



[This message has been edited by Alexander Grace (edited April 17, 2005).]

[Robert E. Jordan]

Janet,

There is nothing wrong with writing three line poems in English. Just don't tag it Haiku, or you end up with Honky Haiku, which always leaves a bad taste.

Bobby

[Alexander Grace]

Robert, that's brilliant.

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Is there some idea of Japan as this hermetically sealed bubble that poetry sometimes filters out of but never back into? Last I checked, the Japanese were very fond of playing with Western concepts, including Western concepts based on Eastern concepts and not so much lost as mutated in the translation.

Look at, oh, say, Sailor Moon. We have a Japanese cartoon about a blond girl with magical powers and a penchant for wearing Japanese schoolgirl interpretations of Western children's sailor suits circa 1910, which were of course interpretations of ADULT sailor costumes of that era, and then the cartoons are translated into English and little American blond girls--and occasionally adult women and even men into kos-play--are getting outfits based on a Japanese interpretation of a Western costume based on a Western costume, and, um, are they wearing sailor suits anymore? Do you actually have to dig clams to wear clamdiggers? Is a haiku only haiku if written in Japanese in the style that Basho set down?

If Basho were around today, I think he'd both be having a conniption fit and being tickled pink by seeing what he started. I'm perfectly fine with folk calling the little 5-7-5 thingies haiku, the same as I'm fine with folk calling a hamburger a hamburger, even though it was not invented in Hamburg, nor are french fries French--they're what the Belgian's decided to do with something the Incas domesticated. Though I'm certain you can now get a hamburger in Hamburg, french fries in Peru, and even hear English-haiku-influenced haiku in Japan.

[Steven Schroeder]

I think a large part of the haiku prejudice is because of the language barrier. Americans are only going to see the best-of-the-best haiku translated from Japanese, and of course those are going to look great next to the reams and reams of "Look, Maw, I wrote a poem" haiku written in English, just like the reams and reams of bad nature poems and bad confessional poems and bad sonnets and whatever. And right now in Japan someone is writing how poor modern haiku in Japanese are, because they've been reading the reams and reams of bad ones in Japanese.

------------------
Steve Schroeder

[Alexander Grace]

Kevin and Steven, what you say is brilliant too. So much brilliance floating around, so little light. Goodnight.

Alex