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WHCshortverses
- Cinquain Workshop 2002 |
From mid-February to mid-March 2002, Denis
Garrison, Editor of AMAZE, the Cinquain Journal and Associate Editor, Deborah
Kolodji, conducted a highly successful Cinquain Workshop and Contest for members
of WHCshortverses. We are pleased to present the first exercise of the Cinquain
Workshop lessons, which was to compose a Valentine's cinquain as the holiday was
upon us. A selection of those resulting poems are included here with the
exercise.
Cinquain Workshop - Valentine
Exercise
Denis Garrison - Editor of AMAZE: The Cinquain Journal
The first exercise of the WHCshortverses Cinquain Workshop was to write a
cinquain with romantic love, Valentine's Day, sweethearts, etc., as the theme.
We examined the basic prosody of the cinquain in the Valentine exercise. The
main elements we
considered were:
1. Accentual versification (1,2,3,4,1 stresses, in the 5 lines, respectively).
2. Syllabic versification (2,4,6,8,2 syllables, in the 5 lines, respectively).
3. Metrics: the iambic foot as normative.
4. Connections of the 1st & 5th lines -
dunadh (repetition of a syllable, word, or line at the beginning and end of a
stanza) and "resonant connection" (not straight repetition, but any
connection by which reading line 1 and line 5 together added
some nuance of meaning to the poem).
5. Titles, especially as they may relate to and further complement or add
resonance to the poem.
6. Turns, the twist, reversal, punch line, etc., that occurs at or immediately
before the 5th line; the cinquain rough equivalent of "kireji" in
haiku.
We discussed peripherally a few other issues, like the structure of a mirror
cinquain, alliteration, and rhyme.
My presentation of prosody at the beginning of the Cinquain Workshop (see World
Haiku Review, March 2002) was in the nature of "strict constructionism,"
that is, the rules were "there to be followed." The Valentine exercise
and all the ensuing discussion revealed that, predictably, the rules cannot be
followed slavishly without unduly cramping the poetic possibilities of the form.
"Rules can be chains."
With respect to the first 3 criteria listed above, it is true that a cinquain
can be written in the iambic, accentual-syllabic form that was the final form
used by Crapsey. In fact, a purely iambic cinquain with the right number of
syllables necessarily meets all 3 of these criteria. But what did we learn? By
far, the most common variation is the use of trochaic feet, common to emphatic
utterances in English. Anapests and dactyls rounded out the count, with, I
believe, a few spondees. In those non-iambic cinquains submitted, forcing
revision to be purely iambic would have, in most cases, ruined the natural
diction of the poems.
The same is true of the accentual (stress) criterion; there were some lines with
long or short stress counts, but they were natural and forcing them into a
single mold would have distorted them. All or virtually all of the poems used
the syllabic
criterion of 2,4,6,8,2 syllables, which is clearly the modal criterion of all
the participants.
Conclusion: While the accentual and iambic criteria are perhaps useful guides,
compliance with them is not essential; whereas, compliance with the syllabic
criterion apparently is essential in the true sense of the word.
With respect to connections of the 1st & 5th lines - dunadh and
"resonant connection" - these are not required elements of the
cinquain; rather, they are particularly useful poetic techniques. Neither is
required but either can be exploited,
when a poem calls for it, to add meaning and/or ambiguity to a poem. Conclusion:
Connect lines 1 & 5 only when you find it helps the poem.
With respect to titles, some entries were untitled. I had indicated my opinion
that the basic rule should be that a classic cinquain ought to be carefully
titled, so as to give greater depth and resonance to the poem. More on this
point may
be read at the "AMAZE Forum for Cinquain Poets"
The link to the Forum, which is open
membership, is at:
http://www.denisgarrison.com/amaze/cinquain/participation.html
I believe the majority consensus (but surely not unanimous) at the end of the
Valentine exercise is that titles are useful. While it is my personal opinion
that cinquains should be titled, and that the title should add value rather than
merely repeat words or lines of the stanza, that is still just my opinion. The
poet must decide for her/himself.
With respect to "turns" that occur at or immediately before the 5th
line, while this was an important criterion to Crapsey, it appears to be less
important to a significant coterie of poets. However, some poets do find this
technique very useful and some consider it to be an essential feature of the
cinquain. Given the extraordinary circumstances in Crapsey's invention of the
form, specifically, her imminent demise and her concentration on the idea of a
life suddenly cut short, we may not need to feel overly constrained by this
criterion, which may have undergone further development or even omission had
Crapsey not died so untimely. Conclusion: The turn is a useful technique,
characteristic of the American Cinquain, but not an essential component of the
form.
Where does that leave us? What is the basic prosody of the cinquain? I think
that simple dictionary definitions are most useful: A five-line stanza. A
five-line verse form, analogous to the Japanese verse forms haiku and tanka, it
has two syllables in its first and last lines and four, six, and eight in the
intervening three lines and is generally iambic in meter.
As for the other techniques, they should be just that: available techniques by
which a poet can add meaning, depth, resonance, etc., to a stanza which meets
the 5-line, syllabic-count criterion. Even meter can vary without disqualifying
a stanza as
a cinquain.
The cinquain poet needs to understand these various criteria and techniques, but
must not be enslaved by them. Every poem is an opportunity to rewrite poetic
rules.
Following are fourteen of the fine cinquains submitted for the Valentine
exercise.
Denis Garrison
AMAZE http://www.denisgarrison.com/amaze/
