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“Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.”
Sir Walter Scott quotes (1771-1832)
“Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.”
Plato quotes (428 BC-348 BC)
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Poetry By Numbers - Part Two: 5’s, 6’s, and 7’s
Counting is important in poetry; from counting syllables and metrical feet, to counting lines and stanzas in order to follow certain forms. Today we will go over the vocabulary that accompanies some of these tasks, as well as a couple poetry forms for you to try.
Poetry By 5’s
Poetry by five’s, in stanza form, is called a quintet. There are several forms that are, or use, quintets. A few of note are: the limerick, tanka, cinquain (see details below), and the quintilla.
Cinquain
I originally thought this form was pronounced: Sin qwain. I have since learned that it is pronounced: Sing cane. Like the Haiku or Tanka, this form brings a snippet of time to life on paper.
BRIEF HISTORY
This poetry form is an American form, and as such, is a young poetry form when compared to the ones invented in ancient Greece. The cinquain may have descended from “a five-line French stanza with any rhyme scheme,” Adelaide Crapsey invented the familiar form we use today, and that will be detailed below, about a century ago (Williams 49).
MUST HAVES
--5 lines.
--Syllabic. Lines are:
Line 1: Two syllables
Line 2: Four syllables
Line 3: Six syllables
Line 4: Eight syllables
Line 5: Two syllables
COULD HAVES or What's The Poet's Choice In All This?
--Usually doesn’t rhyme, but no rules say you can’t.
--Any subject matter.
OF NOTE
I recommend reading some of Crapsey’s cinquains to get an idea of what she wanted to accomplish with this form. Start with “Triad.”
In the first example listed in the “Features” section (“Sun”), you will find a variation that details what should go into each line (line one: noun, line two: two adjectives describing the title, etc.). This is not how Crapsey’s original form was written, but is a way to go if you need a more detailed plan to follow.
Poetry By 6’s
When you talk about poetry by six’s in stanza form, it is a sestet. There are several forms that are, or use, sestets. A few of them are: the sestina (see details below), hir a thoddaid, and the clogyrnach.
Sestina
“The word sestina comes from the Latin sextus, which means ‘sixth’” (Padgett, 170). The sestina is almost a 6 x 6 poem. That is, the first six stanzas are six lines each. What keeps this from being truly 6 x 6 is a tercet (a three line stanza) at the end of the poem.
BRIEF HISTORY
About eight hundred years ago it is believed that Anault Daniel invented the sestina. This means it is a French invention, but was played with by Italian and English poets, as well.
MUST HAVES
--Stanza length: 6 lines.
--Rhyme: unrhymed.
--Six 6-line stanzas and one 3-line stanza.
--Repeating words are as follows (the dots represent the words in front of the repeating words. In all stanzas the repeating words come at the end, except for the tercet, where they are at the end and in the middle of each line.):
First stanza-
…….First repeating word
…….Second repeating word
…….Third repeating word
…….Fourth repeating word
…….Fifth repeating word
…….Sixth repeating word
Second stanza-
…….Sixth repeating word
…….First repeating word
…….Fifth repeating word
…….Second repeating word
…….Fourth repeating word
…….Third repeating word
Third stanza-
…….Third repeating word
…….Sixth repeating word
…….Fourth repeating word
…….First repeating word
…….Second repeating word
…….Fifth repeating word
Fourth stanza-
…….Fifth repeating word
…….Third repeating word
…….Second repeating word
…….Sixth repeating word
…….First repeating word
…….Fourth repeating word
Fifth stanza-
…….Fourth repeating word
…….Fifth repeating word
…….First repeating word
…….Third repeating word
…….Sixth repeating word
…….Second repeating word
Sixth stanza-
…….Second repeating word
…….Fourth repeating word
…….Sixth repeating word
…….Fifth repeating word
…….Third repeating word
…….First repeating word
Final stanza-
.…1st repeating word….2nd repeating word
.…3rd repeating word....4th repeating word
.…5th repeating word….6th repeating word
COULD HAVES or What's The Poet's Choice In All This?
--Any meter. If a meter is chosen, stick with it throughout the poem.
--Any syllable count per line (if you choose to go with syllabics). If chosen, stick with it throughout the poem.
--Subject matter.
OF NOTE
A member of writing.com, jason_ackerman, has made a variation of this form and has called it “The Diablo.” His variation has created a true 6 x 6 (x 6) poem. It consists of six stanzas, six lines each, and six syllables in each line (no ending tercet, as the sestina has). Also, his variation does not require word repetition.
Poetry By 7’s
Poetry by seven’s, in stanza form, is called a septet. There are several forms that are, or use, septets. A few of note are: rime royal (see details below), toddaid, and the rondelet.
Rime Royal aka Chaucerian Stanza
BRIEF HISTORY
This form can be called either rime royal or a Chaucerian stanza. Because he used it in a few of his poems, it “is sometimes called Chaucerian stanza, but more often rime royal because James I of Scotland used it” (Turco, 237).
MUST HAVES
--Stanza length: 7 lines.
--Rhyme scheme: ABABBCC
--Meter: Iambic pentameter. (Can also be ten syllables if you have trouble with meter.)
COULD HAVES or What's The Poet's Choice In All This?
--Subject matter.
~*~
METER ME in St. Louis, Louis
I didn’t go in depth with meter in this article. It can get long and complicated. However I will share these metrical terms: pentameter = five metrical feet, hexameter = six metrical feet, and heptameter = seven metrical feet. (Look for more in Poetry By Numbers - Part Three: 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s.)
Source Notes:
Padgett, Ron. The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms. 2nd. NY: T & W Books, 2000.
Williams, Miller (1986). Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms. 3rd. Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2000.
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Theme: Cinquain, Sestet, and Rime Royal
Cinquains:
Sestets:
Rime Royal:
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RESPONSES to last month's poetry exercise:
No one wanted to share their response to last month's exercise. I hope that means everyone loved their results so much they decided to submit them to contests or publishers 
I've decided to use The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach: (Available at Amazon.Com) in order to hone my skills.
Every month I will share a synopsis of one of the exercises I want to try. If you also try the exercise, please feel free to share it with me and the Poetry newsletter subscribers. If you send me a link to your item, I shall place that link in this section next month.
The exercise I will try this month comes from Part 2. It is called "Writing the Spectrum," by Elizabeth Spires.
In this exercise you pick a color and repeat it throughout your poem. Try to think about the connotations of the color you choose to repeat. Spires says, "because colors naturally evoke strong emotional responses, the forced and constant repetition of the color usually insures that the poem has symbolic and psychological resonance, that it transcends being merely an 'exercise.'"
Have a question, answer, problem, solution, tip, trick, cheer, jeer, or extra million lying around?
If so, send it through the feedback section at the bottom of this newsletter OR click the little envelope next to my name Red Writing Hood <3 and send it through email.
Comments on last month's newsletter:
Submitted By: wakko71
Submitted Comment:
I found this particular poetry newsletter to be fascinating, informative and extremely useful. This is one of the few that I'll save to my faves and study often. I love how you've carefully broken down and described several poetry forms, and also provide some history or background on how they came to be. Thank you so very much for all of your apparent hard work!
Submitted By: northernwrites
Submitted Comment:
Good newsletter, Red Writing Hood <3 , The names of things are interesting. I read the other day that the Italian quatrain (iambic pentameter, ABBA rhyme), is also called a heroic envelope quatrain. Heroic refers to the rule about iambic pentameter. Envelope quatrain refers to the rule about having the ABBA rhyme scheme. So the naming of poetry forms and patterns uses math not only to count all that stuff, but also in the rules for what qualifies for using a particular name -- which is set theory (from the "new math," for the oldtimers among us).
You don't see the specific names of things used that often around the site. But when writers include the names in the Brief Description or the keywords, the information becomes available through the site search bar, which is a definite plus for newsletter editors who are looking for a particular kind of poem. Northernwrites
Submitted By: scarahliz
Submitted Comment:
Hey! Just a quick note, you said in this issue something about Dante's Inferno and treated The Divine Comedy as a separate entity. However, The Inferno is part of The Divine Comedy: it is the first book.
Great catch--a slip of the pen on my part. Thanks for clarifying that for the newsletter subscribers!
Thank you all for your great comments and feedback.
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Poetry: July 22, 2009 Issue [#3179]
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