Free Cinquain Generator
Generate an American cinquain in 2-4-6-8-2 syllables, opening out to the fourth line and snapping shut on the fifth.
Cinquain · Reflective
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What is a cinquain?
A cinquain widens for four lines and then shuts. Two syllables, four, six, eight, and then two again, which gives the last line the force of a door closing.
The rules, exactly
- Exactly five lines with 2, 4, 6, 8 and 2 syllables.
- No rhyme.
- The poem grows to its widest line then closes sharply on the two-syllable ending, which should reverse or crystallise what came before.
- Lines
- 5
- Syllables
- 2-4-6-8-2
- Rhyme
- No Rhyme
Where it comes from
Adelaide Crapsey devised the American cinquain around 1911 after studying Japanese forms, and wrote most of them while dying of tuberculosis. The compression is not accidental.
These be Three silent things: The falling snow, the hour Before the dawn, the mouth of one Just dead.