Maggie Sawkins, who leads local poetry and creative group Tongues & Grooves has unleashed a local #writingchallenge and they kindly let us publish the responses. This week’s challenge is to write a Cinquain, a syllabic form invented by American poet, Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914).
The Form:
- Five lines
- It does not rhyme but is based on a set of syllables per line, as follows:
- two in the first line; four in the second; six in the third; eight in the fourth, and two in the fifth
- (2, 4, 6, 8, 2)
- The poem builds as each line becomes longer until the last line which, being suddenly short, allows particular emphasis to fall on the words and meaning of the ending.
Nightfall
During lockdown
The moon shines on the fox
As it wanders the empty streets
In peace
Maggie Sawkins
Sunshine
Beckoning me
Out of the muted dawn
Into the field of wet grasses
Barefoot
Norma Ayers
Birch tree
Which slowly comes
Into view, sees us two
I know so much but cannot tell
Please stop
Janet Ayers
Such days
we’re living through.
Routine is made anew.
Himself indoors chafing, missing
Cricket.
Sue Spiers
Advert:
Loo roll for sale!
Forty-five pence a sheet.
Do not let yourself get caught short —
Stock pile!
Marie Monro
Jasmine
Muscari crowds
The grassy path winds through
The long grown dewy lawn, it’s dawn
White blooms
Suzanne Attridge
Ticks sigh
In the white noise
Under the floorboards still
Forty years of expectation
Creaking
Bernard MacDonagh
Open
The window wide
The deadly virus floats
Inside. Slowly she takes a breath
And dies
Eileen Phyall
I am
Not the one who
Stained the grass green, or who
Pricked the slate black sky nightly so
Stars shone
Margaret Jennings
The spuds
Are quarantined
Another day at least
No pasta. Rice for dinner then
Again!
Anne Paton
24
68 What do
We appreciate today?
The crowd that once bustled about
Now gone
Christo Morley
Langstone,
Fowley Island
Egrets seeking molluscs
On glistening mudflats’ shining
Beauty
Simon Cattermole
Blackbird
newly arrived
on the grey-lichened back
of a forgotten chair, trills its
lament
Amanda Garrie
You can take part in the regular Tongues & Grooves #WritingChallenge over on their Facebook page and check out their website and Twitter, too.
Image by ThoughtCatalog from Pixabay.
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