Two Syllables, Two Syllables by Judith Ecker Budreau Two syllables at the beginning. Two at the end. And in between, the words we need to move from one to the other. Sometimes, I read the first line of a cinquain, then skip to the last line. What’s my first impression? Does this impression hold when I read the entire poem, or am I surprised? Either way, moving through the rhythm of the poem’s middle lines deepens my understanding of the essential four syllables in each cinquain. Many of the poets working with cinquain today make intriguing use of the unique two-syllable beginning and ending lines of the cinquain – this, of course, is why it’s interesting to look closely at the first and last lines for the “resonance” Denis Garrison suggests could be there. His article, “An Introduction to the American Cinquain” (AMAZE 1,1) is essential reading to understand this evolving poetic form. Garrison argues that cinquains and other short verse forms can and should be used to explore many subjects beyond the life and death issues Adelaide Crapsey explored in her cinquains. He is probably the poet most adept at pushing the boundaries of the cinquain form, including his use of the ancient practice of “dunadh” – a repetition in first and last lines – to this cinquain: When I Saw "Keep her" My heart tells me. With her married sisters, So like them, yet she's all her own. Keeper!                             World Haiku Review, August 2001 The poet explains why he thinks the dunadh technique is especially well-suited to cinquains: Dunadh is the repetition of a syllable, word, or line at the beginning and end of a stanza and/or poem, an ancient Irish bardic device also called the circle-back… The pure dunadh (actual repetition) is not used by Adelaide Crapsey in any of her cinquains, so, it is not a necessary feature of the original design. But use of the dunadh is certainly an option for cinquains. Garrison goes on to note that while Adelaide Crapsey did not use dunadh in her poems, she often made what he calls a “resonant connection” between lines 1 and 5 in her cinquains. “In such a short form as the cinquain, such devices may be used to deepen the resonance of (or perhaps introduce ambiguity into) the poem…I would argue she used it quite a lot…’How frail ... The moon’ plaintively summarizes Crapsey's ‘NIAGARA Seen on a Night in November’” (AMAZE, 2002). Here is Crapsey’s cinquain: How frail Above the bulk Of crashing water hangs, Autumnal, evanescent, wan, The moon. We would not usually think of the moon as “frail,” but Crapsey helps us to see it so in contrast to the great waterfall, leading us to wonder about human strength and frailty in the face of nature. I believe the two two-syllable lines are the single greatest factor in the cinquain’s suitability for the English language. The middle 4-6-8 syllable lines are necessary to convey the action of the poem – a virtually endless combination of mono- or polysyllabic English words are available. But the movement, the understanding which happens within the poem, almost always occurs because of the tension between the first two syllables and the last two. Mindful that I cannot judge the composition of cinquains solely by my own experience writing them, I nevertheless share one of my cinquains here, the only one of a dozen written last year which comes close to accomplishing the “resonance” between lines 1 and 5: The Moon on a Windy Lake We see bright mercury sliding to stony shore, slipping from the broken center… silver. We see…silver. We see, literally, the sensation of the color silver on the surface of the lake, and we see metaphorical silver, the value of nature’s unsurpassed show. My argument is not that it’s a simple matter to produce an eloquent poem with Adelaide Crapsey’s American cinquain – only that it is possible! WORKS CITED: Crapsey, A. (1915). Verse. Rochester: Manas Press. (Kessinger reprint) Garrison, D. (Spring/Summer 2002). “An introduction to the American cinquain.” Amaze 1 (1). Retrieved June 15, 2007 from http://amaze-cinquain.com/vol_1_no_1/v1n1articleDG.html

Return to the front page of this issue:   Amaze   Vol. 6, No. 1   Go to the Poets & Authors page for the poet's biographical sketch and email link. All poems are copyright © 2008 by their respective authors.