CPC POETRY CHALLENGE PREVIEW: The Friday Fling Fetes Favorite Romantic Stories!
This is a special preview for the CPC Friday Fling poetry challenge. Poems should be posted there after the challenge opens Thursday at 9 PM EST.
Friday Fling #218 for February 8th 2013
Our love month celebration continues with a challenge to write about your favorite romantic movie or story.
Formatwise, we’d like you to try expressing your feelings about your favorite romantic film or story in a Cinquain. This is described in part of an essay at ShadowPoetry.com
Knowing What Counts: The Cinquain
By Deborah P Kolodji
On October 8, 1914, a thirty-six year old woman died of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis in Rochester, New York. One year later, Manas Press published her first (and only) book of poetry, Verse. This poet’s name was Adelaide Crapsey, the inventor of the American Cinquain.
Crapsey was born in 1878, the third child of an Episcopal clergyman. She graduated from Vassar College, returning to her high school boarding school, Kemper Hall, to teach literature and history. A few years later, while teaching a course entitled, “Poetics: A Critical Study of Verse Forms” at Smith College, she began a study of metrics which led to her invention of the cinquain as we know it.
In its simplest dictionary definition, a cinquain is a poem of five lines. Crapsey’s cinquain was more specific, a poem of five lines with a specific syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, usually iambic. The ideal cinquain for Crapsey was one that worked up to a turn or climax, and then fell back. Similar to the “twist” that often occurs in the final couplet of a sonnet, a cinquain’s “turn” usually occurs during the final, shorter fifth line or immediately before it. Thus, the momentum of a cinquain grows with each subsequent line as another two syllables, usually an ambic foot, is added bringing the poem to a climax at the fourth line, falling back to a two syllable “punch line”.
This week the Friday Fling considers favorite romantic stories Cinquainly!
Be sure to save time to read and comment winsomely on your fellow Pals’ Cinquainish celebrations. Then go find the romance in this February weekend!
Fickle Finger of Fate Award for February 1st
Congratulations Michelle!
