On my first Sunday Scribblings of the year, here is to a wonderful thriving twenty twenty two!! This year is a tautogram.. nothing to do with tautness or tightness of course. A tautogram is simply a phrase, or more often, a poem or even longer work of writing where every word begins with the same letter; as in “twenty twenty two” or even “two thousand twenty two!” Terrific toast-worthy thriving twenty twenty two!!

Anyways, while I was planning to use the tautogram as my poetic form this year, what with the form focusing on beginnings (of each word in the poem), and the fact that the year is also one (ignore the and), I knew I needed more time to work on an example. So I am going another route, and you will see why soon…

But back to thriving this year.. that is my (and I am sure a global one too) wish for it for all of us…

Poetic Sundays: The Cinquain

(Or the first poetic form of Twenty Twenty Two on Poetic Sundays!)

The Cinquain is apt for today, as the first poetic form to be featured for this year. Simply because it is made up of twenty two syllables!! So read on to find out more about the form and how to write it, as well as a variety of fun variations of the form.

What is the (Crapsey) Cinquain Poetic Form?

To be clear, today’s featured cinquain is the modern American version of the form, created by Adelaide Crapsey about a century ago now. It is referred to as the American cinquain, the Crapsey cinquain, or simply cinquain.

The cinquain itself has older roots, with its origin in medieval French poetry. The cinquain originally referred to (and still often does) any five-line poem. Most commonly, cinquains had rhyme schemes of ababb, abaab or abccb.

The modern cinquain, while still a five-line poem, is more specific in terms of syllabic count. Crapsey invented this form inspired by the Japanese tanka (and haiku). In contrast to those Japanese forms which are sans-title, she always titled her cinquains, thus creating an additional line with the title.

Adelaide Crapsey’s cinquain is a non-rhyming, five-line poem which employs an increasing syllable count in the first four lines, starting with two in the first, and increasing by two syllables each till line four, before returning to two syllables on the fifth and last line.

The Cinquain Poetic Form’s Characteristics

So the (Crapsey) Cinquain poetic form’s elements are that at its most basic, it is:

• stanzaic: is a single stanza of five-lines and each cinquain stands by itself (see below for variations)
• syllabic:  2-4-6-8-2 
• unrhymed (but nowhere does it state, from what I could find, that it cannot be rhymed – so the poet can do what they wish)
• titled: each poem always has a title, which effectively becomes line 6 for the basic 5-line poem

So this is how it looks

L1: xx (2 syllables)
L2: xxxx (4 syllables)
L3: xxxxxx (6 syllables)
L4: xxxxxxxx (8 syllables)
L5: xx (2 syllables)

Cinquain Variations

Note that in each of these variations (even those that have more than one cinquain), the title rule applies to the whole poem and not to individual cinquains in those variations. So only one title per poem.

• Simple version (for fun/for kids): You can use a 1-2-3-4-1 word count across the lines instead of focusing on syllables. This is usually a didactic poem (1 noun – 2 adjectives – 3 action verbs – 4 word sentence – 1 noun –> all lines related to the subject/object which is usually the title of this poem)
• Reverse Cinquain: Like the name suggests, this is a cinquain in reverse, with syllable count of 2-8-6-4-2
• Mirror Cinquain: Again, like the name suggests, in this one, a cinquain mirrors itself; or, in other words, it is a cinquain followed by a reverse cinquain (minus the title for the second one).. So the syllable count overall is 2-4-6-8-4-2-2-8-6-4-2
• Butterfly Cinquain: Almost a mirror cinquain, minus one of the 2-syllable lines in the middle. So it is a nine-syllable poem with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-4-2-8-6-4-2
• Cinquain Chain: Simply put, a chain of any number of cinquains where the last line of each cinquain is repeated as the first one of the following one.
• Garland Cinquain: A twist on the chain!! This is a series of six cinquains in which the last one is formed of lines from the preceding five, typically L1 from stanza one, L2 from stanza two, and so on.
• Cinquain Swirl: Effectively, a longer chain of butterfly cinquains where L5 of each cinquain becomes L1 of the following cinquain resulting in a swirl pattern across the page it is written on.

My Example

A Toast
Here’s to
the year twenty
twenty two…here is to
wishing for peace, love, joy plenty!
(health too!)
~Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites

You can read previous examples I wrote here and here.

h/t, References, and Further Reading

• Wikipedia’s Cinquain page
• Cinquain.org

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Recently

On My Blog

My recent posts since and including my last Sunday Scribblings:

• Happy New Year: Working On Your Strengths
• My Favorite Books of the Year
• Sunday Scribblings #89: Endings and Beginnings That’re Simply Beautiful

And At Home

After spending most of the holidays at home having canceled our vacation plans due to sickness, we finally managed to go on a last minute trip before school started for the kids (well, teens). We planned it all pretty much overnight but it turned out wonderful. So what was the trip, you ask? It was just a three day, two night trip away from home before we had to drop off my son at his college for the winter quarter (and yes, they are having classes in person, mostly).

The trip itself was in and around San Luis Obispo. We finally checked out Pismo Beach, and glad we did so (better late than never, right!) The Dunes at Oceano are wondrous indeed, and the Monarch Butterfly Grove at Pismo Beach was stunning as it teemed with the magnificent monarch butterflies!!! While the number of butterflies are not as many as they were even about a decade ago, they have gone up from the previous couple of years. So keeping fingers crossed for their return, and I am thinking of planting some monarch friendly plants in my yard as well. And oh yes, we stopped for brief tours of two California missions along the way, and it was like stepping into history.

Keep an eye out for more information on these amazing must-visit places later this week right here on my blog. For now, here is a collage to whet your appetite!

Cybils Awards Update: List of Finalists!

The Cybils Awards 2021 finalists have been announced! You can click on the link to go to Cybils page to check out all the finalists across the categories. As for the YA Fiction category, here are the finalists.

Upcoming

On My Blog and Home Front

Some more mini-review posts coming your way for sure, to catch up on all the reading I have done for the Cybils and elsewhere. Otherwise, it is back to the grind for all of us after a break over the last couple of weeks.

This Week’s Celebrations

Literary Celebrations (close-to-it also!)

• Literary birthdays this week include: J.R.R. Tolkien and Cicero on January 3rd; Natalie Goldberg, Gao Xingjian, Harlan Coben, and Isaac Newton on the 4th of January; Umberto Eco, W. D. Snodgrass, on the 5th; January 6th celebrates Carl Sandburg, Elizabeth Strout; the 7th of January is for Zora Neale Hurston, Gerald Durrell, and Shobhaa De; Terry Brooks, Wilkie Collins on the 8th of January; and January 9th celebrates Anne Rivers Siddons, Joseph Epstein, Philippa Gregory, and Simone de Beauvoir.
• January 4th is World Braille Day
• The 5th of January is National Screenwriters Day
• World Typing Day is celebrated annually on January 8th

Foodie Celebrations

• January 3rd is National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
• National Spaghetti Day is celebrated on the 4th of January
• Jan 5th is National Whipped Cream Day
• The 6th of January celebrates both National Bean Day and National Shortbread Day
• National Tempura Day is the 7th of January, and I will try it out with some vegetables…
• A sweet treat for the 8th as it is National English Toffee Day
• National Apricot Day is on the 9th of January to help end the week with a healthier sweet treat!

Other Celebrations

• Did you know that the 4th of January is National Trivia Day? (Well I couldn’t resist!)
• The 5th of January celebrates National Bird Day
• National Technology Day  and National Cuddle Up Day are on the 6th of January… but don’t cuddle up with tech!!
• The 7th of January is National Bobblehead Day
• January 8th is Earth’s Rotation Day and also National Bubble Bath Day as well as National Winter Skin Relief Day  and National Argyle Day
• National Balloon Ascension Day is celebrated on the 9th of January

Multi-day Celebrations

Given it is January, it is not surprising that this first week is

• Diet Resolution Week,
• New Year’s Resolutions Week 

And considering we are celebrating another new year, why not celebrate life itself with Celebration of Life Week 

It also happens to be another cool but surprising week long celebration called National Silent Record Week 

Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, you have reached the end of this Sunday Scribblings! As always, I welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions about this post. And do let me know if you plan to celebrate any of these mentioned celebrations this coming week/month?

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon