I really like the cinquain. It is alive and poignant. While reading it, I couldn't help but hear another poetic form, the numeric proverb. (Sorry, it's my academic discipline!) Hebrew poetry has an n+1 form.
Three things are too wonderful for me, four things I do not understand: The way of a ship upon the sea, the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, and the way of a man and a woman.
Cross-cultural poetry always seems to bring new awareness of the world. That is to say, it makes my brain work differently.
Another one inspired by Adelaide Crapsey's "Triad:"
ReplyDelete3
These are
deafening things:
winter thunder. . .the dawn
in times of war. . .the cry of one
just born.
First published in Lilliput Review, July 2009
I really like the cinquain. It is alive and poignant. While reading it, I couldn't help but hear another poetic form, the numeric proverb. (Sorry, it's my academic discipline!) Hebrew poetry has an n+1 form.
ReplyDeleteThree things are too wonderful for me,
four things I do not understand:
The way of a ship upon the sea,
the way of an eagle in the air,
the way of a serpent upon a rock,
and the way of a man and a woman.
Cross-cultural poetry always seems to bring new awareness of the world. That is to say, it makes my brain work differently.