Welcome to Day 27! Today's prompt is a type of poem: a cinquain chain. If you've met cinquains before, you'll know them as the French "fivey": five lines, each line growing in length, then the last line short. The syllable count goes like this:
Line 1: 2 syllablesThe cinquain chain takes this a step further: you write multiple cinquain stanzas, and the final line of each stanza is reused as the first line of the next stanza. You can write as many as you like, then right at the end, it ties in a circle by using the first line of the poem as the last line.
Line 2: 4 syllables
Line 3: 6 syllables
Line 4: 8 syllables
Line 5: 2 syllables
Here's one I wrote from the prompt "falls to the soul" (a snippet from Pablo Neruda's poem, "Tonight I can write the saddest lines"):
Frost-dark
falls. To the soul
tiny stabs of light are
constellations, a sparse dot-to-dot
promise.
Promise
five dots can make
the big dipper, nineteen
are somehow Orion, and that’s
the sword.
The sword
of Damocles,
hanging by a horse hair
above the throne, mocks what you wished
on stars.
On stars,
we pin such shapes,
wildly drawing contours
of beasts and gods, between dots, on
frost-dark.
And if you'd like an idea of what to write about, I suggest an animal that fascinates, intrigues, or awes you. Personally, I have a real thing for wasps. In the summer, I love listening to them industriously mining the shed roof for wood to make their nests, the sound of dozens of tiny saws. I like it when they visit my sandwich and carefully manoeuvre around to cut a minute cube of meat to carry off. Sometimes they come and shout important messages in my ear (which, regrettably, I don't understand). Even getting badly stung and having a "large local reaction" didn't put me off them: I just ended up researching them more and writing a poem about it! So they definitely intrigue me. I'm awed by red kites; they feel like something out of myth or legend, hovering overhead. I suppose I have a thing about spiders, given that I'm arachnaphobic, and I also have an abiding fear of sharks – which I see more as a healthy fear, as I grew up next to their breeding grounds! So in a fearful way, I guess both of those fascinate me. If you can't bring an animal readily to mind, I have two picture galleries you can flick through to remind you of ones that fascinate, intrigue, or awe you:
- Animal Corner: Wonderfully comprehensive with pleasing layout and links to more info, but arachnaphobes beware: spiders are listed individually so there are quite a lot of those!
- A to Z Animals: A smaller list (it's aimed at children) but not childishly small, and far fewer spiders (none until you get to M)
Have fun!
The Meddling with Poetry course explores a host of different poetry forms as well as the musicality of language, poetic imagery, and other aspects of the poetic. It's 8 weeks long, one evening a week, and absolute beginners and experienced writers are equally welcome. You can read more details and book a place here.
