Forms of Poetry: Cinquain

Today is the first day of April and ushers in Poetry Month. I shall be writing poems each day of this month in recognition of Poetry Month. However, for the first twenty-five days of April, I shall probably compose poems with themes suitable for the Police Wives Association of Barbados. There is a reason for this. The Police Wives Association of Barbados is celebrating its Silver Anniversary.

Among the things I like about poetry is that it can be crafted in many forms and styles. Therefore it is important to understand the meaning and purpose for the diversity. This understanding allows the wise selection of the best form and style for the particular poetic purpose in mind. Today, I have selected to use the Cinquain form.

The original Cinquain was the brain-child of the female American poet, Adelaide Crapsey. She based it on the Japanese Haiku. When she died a single woman at the age of 37 from tuberculosis her poems were published posthumously in 1915. Her Cinquain form is made up of twenty-two words and is purely syllabic unrhymed lines. Two forms of the Cinquain have flowed out of her inspiration and they follow a strict pattern. You'll see the marked differences as you analyze their structures shown as follows:

Crapsey Cinquain Form

Line 1 = 2 syllables
Line 2 = 4 syllables
Line 3 = 6 syllables
Line 4 = 8 syllables
Line 5 = 2 syllables

Cinquain Forms which have emerged are shown in the following patterns:

( a)

Line 1 = One word title
Line 2 = Two words that describe the subject of the title
Line 3 = Three words related to the subject (use verbs)
Line 4 = Four to five words that express feelings about the subject (not a complete sentence)
Line 5 = Same word as Line 1, a synonym or a similar word.

(b)

Line 1 = A noun
Line 2 = Two adjectives describing Line 1
Line 3 = Three -ing words (verbs) relating to Line I
Line 4 = A phrase, or complete sentence that relates to Line 1
Line 5 = Another word for the noun

Click here to go to Cinquain poem

Forms of Poetry: Diastic

"Diastic" is a word coined by Jackson Mac Low from the Greek words "dia" (through) and "stichos"(a line of writing, a verse). He termed it as deterministic method that relied on the use of two texts:

Seed Text
Source Text

The Matched Asymmetries are derived from their sources by "diastic reading-through procedures".

In employing such procedures, the writer reads through the source text, taking into the poem each successive unit which has the letters of the source words in corresponding places. The first linguistic unit in the poem begins with the first letter of the first word of the title or other seed, the second unit has the second letter of the first word of the seed in its second place, and so forth, possibly through multiple passes through the source string.

In the creation of the Diastic poem, Major Concern for Squatters, Major Concern I selected this article from the daily newspaper as my Source Text. You can use poems as well for the Source Text and Seed Text.

The front page story of the Nation on July 18 highlighted that some squatters had been given enforcement notice to move from Oldbury and this was followed by another article, two days later, by the same newspaper, on squatters mushrooming in a "Zone 1" area adjacent to Blenheim.

In the latter case, the water course runs into the Belle aqueduct and is then pumped to most of our reservoirs by the Belle pumping station. I compliment the newspaper for highlighting this problem relating to water region which is now likely to become a health hazard. I say this because the water table in the Belle is the country's most precious source; and Barbados is dependent on this to supply our nationals, our livestock, our tourism and our manufacturing industries.

The purity of the water must not be compromised if we are to survive physically and economically. If we know that contamination of or water supply would be irresponsible and not immediately reversible, why not be strict with our regulations? It urgently becomes necessary for the responsible powers (if there is such) to arrest this modality which is increasing and being ignored by the policing powers.

On the other side of the coin, Barbados now finds itself with a problem where persons who want to improve their social status and would like to own a residence, are unable to purchase the relevant entities. Most of them opt for the less expensive option of becoming squatters with minimal overheads.

There is an urgency associated with their need for housing; and this cannot be ignored. This is similar to a revolt since their actions continue and are being done in full view of everyone and without fear of being caught in spite of the item being highlighted in our daily newspaper.

It would be a wise move if such signals are not ignored by the authorities but are acted upon before it develops into a genuine social revolt as erupted in 1937.

The article of 20th July states that the residents have either water nor electricity but this is not true for all of them. Some of the installations of utilities were done (in my personal opinion) much faster than for non-squatters.

There still has to be concern about the disposal of faeces, other waste products, collection of garbage, use of chemicals to control weeds and pollution that occur as the population density increases. This increase in numbers is inevitable especially when others requiring similar commodities realize that no action will be taken to arrest the potential disastrous circumstance in the Belle.

I would like therefore to, enquire on the status and requirements needed to build in this area as I do not believe our Town & Country Planning Department should/would allow such circumstances to prevail.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the squatters' goals of wanting to have their own home but should this be done at the detriment of our water resource which can ruin our economy if/when it affects any (if not all) of our sectors. This type of venture needs to be regulated.

I will conclude with this quote from the July 22 SUNDAY SUN article One World which give the social studies panacea: "At first, a few violate the social norms, but as more people violate them, the actions become the norm."

Then, after reading it through the Source Text I selected my Seed Text, Major Concerns for Squatters, Major Concern. This Seed Text in essence becomes the title of the poem.

In crafting the poem I read through the Source text, taking into the poem each successive unit which has the letters of the source words in corresponding places. The first linguistic unit in the poem begins with the first letter of the first word of the title or other seed, the second unit has the second letter of the first word of the seed in its second place, and so forth, until the seed text is completed through the source string, these I have numbered to show how the Diastic structure evolves.

As you will readily see the Diastic is contrasted to "Acrostic." (from "akros" (an extreme, such as the letter at the beginning or end of a verse line). "Acrostic" reading-through procedures draw words and other linguistic units from source texts by "spelling out" their titles with linguistic units that have the letters of the words in the titles as their initial letters. One reads through a source text and finds successively linguistic units spelling out the title as follows: the units spelling out individual words comprise single lines (often long ones) and the series of lines spelling out the whole title comprises a stanza. (The "asymmetries" are nonstanzaic but still partially acrostic.)

Major Concern for Squatters, Major Concern
1 2345 1 23 4 567 123 1 2 34 567 89 1 2345 1 23 4 567

(Diastic)

1 Move
2 was
3 adjacent
4 Into
5 reservoirs'

1 Complement
2 for
3 manufacturing
4 which
5 increasing
6 authorities
7 residents

1 for
2 some
3 were

1 Still
2 squatters
3 studies
4 panacea
5 first
6 violate
7 violate
8 squatters
9 squatters

1 Mushrooming
2 latter
3 adjacent
4 into
5 water

1 Case
2 social
3 runs
4 circumstances
5 Belle,
6 electricity,
7 planning...

Click here to read the poem

Source Text

Don't uproot them!
Brief
by TREVOR YEARWOOD
NO BULLDOZERS, please!
Government's adviser on eradicating poverty, Hamilton Lashley, made this plea yesterday in the wake of notices the Town Planning Department sent to several squatters in Oldbury, St Philip, to move on.
"To bring the bulldozers in and uproot so many persons at one time is inhumane and not in sync with Government's commitment to help the poorest of the poor," Lashley told the SATURDAY SUN.

"I am not one to encourage people to squat, but it would be sociological madness, pure and simple, just to uproot them like that, to send in the bulldozers and lick down their houses. "There must be a more palatable solution, there must be a more humane solution."

Lashley said Government needed to "sit down and talk" with Oldbury's more than 60 squatters to find practical solutions, which could include "regularising" their status or helping them to find alternative sites.
"You just can't wake up one morning and give people notice to move like that, especially people who have been living on the same spot for many years," the former Minister of Social Transformation argued.
"I have talked to some of these people and I know that in that 28-day period more than half of those people will not be able to find alternative sites. "The irony of it is that many of these same people now facing the threat of being pushed off the land would have applied to the National Housing Corporation many years ago for a house-spot or a unit to rent and never heard one word from the NHC."

Vast demand

The Member of Parliament for St Michael South East charged that the NHC, by its inability to respond adequately to the vast demand for low-income housing "solutions", and a short-sighted state building programme that failed to anticipate that Government units would be "bursting at the seams" within two decades of being built, were partly to blame for some of the squatting. You think there is only squatting in Oldbury and The Belle? There is squatting in almost all Government housing schemes, where people are adding on to the original structures to accommodate family and close friends," Lashley declared.

"When you are building, you have to build with a vision, you have to build with a plan for the future, but the people responsible for construction of a lot of the Government units, especially those in The Pine, never foresaw that within two decades you would have massive overcrowding there. "In some cases we have 14 to 16 people living in one small two-bedroom unit and sharing one toilet. They have to sleep on the chairs, they have to sleep on the ground, some have to sleep close to the toilet." Lashley said these people found themselves between a rock and a hard place, forced to endure such conditions at home or to venture out to squat because they could not get land or houses to rent or buy.

"Therefore Government has to make houses available in a massive way to the poorest of the poor," he added. He said in the case of The Belle, a vital source of water for Barbadians, the solution might lie in establishing a waste treatment plant and allowing the squatters to stay. "It is time to stop the talk and get on with the job," he added.
Nation News.com
Barbados Leading Newspaper/July 28, 2007

Poor
1 2 3 4

(Diastic)

Poverty notices poorest poor

1 2 3 4

People to people years

1 2 3 4

People more those years

1 2 3 4

Parliament for short-sighted there

1 2 3 4

People too close over-crowding

1 2 3 4

People toilet ground there

1 2 3 4

Click here to read the poem

Squatters Paradise
1 2 3456789 / 123 4 5678

(Diastic)

Simple squatters squat palatable solutions squatter Minister squatters squatters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Programme failed bursting decades building especially decades sentence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Said squatters found squatters squat department declared therefore Oldbury's
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Palatable Barbadians hard demand bulldozers especially persons inhumane
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Click here to read the poem

Forms of Poetry: Categories of the Acrostic

Lately, I'm referred to as a sage poet, for whatever reason. Anyways, as the creator of the site, Poetrynest I do feel comfortably in my skin proffering definitions for various aspects found in poetry. Once you are logged on to the site, you see a list of the various forms of poetry from which poems have been created to exemplify them. This list keeps on changing so you are well advised to subscribe to the feed so as to be alerted when the list is updated. Now, since poetry is the overarching theme for all my blogs you do expect me to come up with a definition for poetry and the various aspects of this literary genre. However, let me say this before I go any further. When we speak of genre we mean the specific form. Style and content are embedded in all forms of poetry which poets select to captivate the audience. All poets use language within a concentrated blend of sound, meaning, and imagery to create an emotional response from the audience. In essence then, genre and form can be used interchangeably.

Poetry

Poetry is the manifestation of literature written in meter. Literature is the body of works recognized for having merit artistically. The poem is the product that emerges out of poetry. When we look at the mode in which poetry exists or manifests itself, essentially what we are faced with, is its form.

Forms of Poetry

If you read the blog, Poetry, Forms and Genres you might recall my saying among other things that form is the structural characteristics of poetic genres. Also, that when form conforms to conventional poetic dictates we have what is known as Fixed Form. Other names for this are Closed Form, classical Form and Traditional Form. Then there is the Non-Compliant Form so termed because it breaks all the rules that govern Fixed Form poetry. The other names for which this form is known by are Unstructured Poetry, and Open Form Poetry. So what this all comes down to is, that there is something called forms of poetry.

Forms of poetry bring to our eyes the poem's shape and structure and provide the general principles upon which the literary work is organized. Once we are able to identify the forms of poetry, we are better able to describe them. In describing these forms of poetry the elements of rhyme, meter and patterns which shape their stanzas are considered.

In Poetrynest, I have a list that shows the various forms of poetry depicted in the poems I have created to serve as exemplars. You may need to subscribe to the feed to be alerted when the list is up-dated. Now let's turn our attention to the form of poetry know as the Acrostic for which they are many categories as you will find out as you read about them.

Abecedarian

This form of poetry was once associated with divinity in ancient cultures for sacred compositions, such as hymns, prayers and psalms. Numerous examples of this form of poetry can be found in the Hebrew Bible.

The Abecedarian is an acrostic poem formed by having distinct portions or verses commencing with successive letters of the alphabet. Censorship is an example of this type of acrostic poem.

Double Reversed Abecedarian

The double Abecedarian is simply the arrangement of the alphabetical letters in the lines or stanzas at the left and right sides of the poem. Then, the first letter of the first line is the same as the last letter of the first line. This forward layout is carried on until all the letters of the alphabet are used up.

When this forward movement of the alphabet letters on one of the two sides of the poem is reversed or shows a backward movement of the alphabet letters, then a double-reversed Abecedarian poem is created. Turbulent Times is an example of this type of acrostic poem.

Acrostic
Alisajs
Lighthouse
Love
News
Olives
Police Wives Association of Barbados
Saint Valentine's Day
Scott Base
The Barbados Museum
The Father of Barbados Independence
Venus goddess of love
Versification

Double Acrostic
Felony

Mesostich
Mowing

Acrostic and Mesostich
Covert Fusion

Acrostic and Telestich
Prayer
Treasures

There can be variations and mixtures in acrostized poetry. It is worthy to note that Queen Victoria was fond of the double acrostic a sort of puzzle. This art form began as puzzles so it is easy to see how varying arrangements can be applied to it for more versatility.

The telestich is formed when the last letters of last words on lines or verses spell a word or words, when taken in order.

The acrostic is formed when the first letters of lines or verses spell a word or words.

The double acrostic is formed when the first letters of words at the beginning of lines of verse and the first letters of last words on the same lines of verse spell out the title/topic or complements the theme of the poem. The poem Felony is an example of this form.

The content of all forms of acrostized poetry should tell something about the encrypted message. It should convey praise on people, cities, objects, events, and so on.