In order to understand the Mirror Cinquain, let's recap the CINQUAIN: From the French, meaning "a grouping of five."
The Cinquain has five lines of two, four, six, eight, and two syllables, respectively, with a total syllabic count of 22.
The cinquain should have no more than two full sentences.
The Handbook of Poetic Forms suggests: Do not add words to fill out this form; write with feeling, but do not allow your writing to become cloyingly sweet; build toward a climax and put a surprise into your last two lines. Rather than parts of speech, be concerned with thoughts and images.
The cinquain came to popularity by Adelaide Crapsy, who devised the form back in the early 1900's. She was so influenced by the Japanese forms, tanka and haiku, that she developed her own poetic system which she then called cinquain.
The most famous of the few Crapsy cinquains from her The Complete Poems is:
TRIAD
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow... the hour
Before the dawn... the mouth of one
Just dead.
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow... the hour
Before the dawn... the mouth of one
Just dead.
Cinquains, though they have never become very popular, have always attracted a number of poets who are still developing the form.
A Mirror Cinquain follows the same pattern, and adds a second one reversed to the first. This is a mirror cinquain's syllabic count in lines:
2
4
6
8
2
2
8
6
4
2
I'll begin this thread with CarrieAnn's example:
Sky Mirrors Water, Water Mirrors Sky
Easy
as a summer
breeze blowing out to sea.
I set my tiller to the gale
and spin
and spin
until landmasses all recede
and calm descends again.
Sky, sea, and one
thin line.
Easy
as a summer
breeze blowing out to sea.
I set my tiller to the gale
and spin
and spin
until landmasses all recede
and calm descends again.
Sky, sea, and one
thin line.
Why not try your own here in this thread! Come on! We dare you! B)
Good luck!
~Cleo
