A cinquain, often known as a quintet, is a five-line poetry or stanza. It may follow any length of meter or line. The most well-known example of a Quintain is the Limerick. A caesura can be used to divide the lines of a quatrain or quintet.
Many poems are divided into five lines, but not all five-line poems are quatrains or quintets. Some examples include:
The sonnet is a form of poetry that usually has fourteen lines, with each line consisting of an octave (eight syllables) and a sestet (six syllables). While most variations of the sonnet use three quaternary structures (quatrains, tercets, and triads), some versions exist in longer forms. For example, some fifteenth-century British poems were composed in thirty-five-line stanzas we now call "sonnets".
The villanelle is a six-line Italian poetic form that evolved as a contest prize during the late 1300s. Like the sonnet, it contains two eight-syllable lines, called "octaves", and two six-syllable lines, called "sestets". Unlike the sonnet, however, the villanelle does not have a strict structure or relationship between its parts.
There are eight different kinds of quintetains. Cinquain (Cinquain): A cinquain is a five-line poem or stanza with a strict syllable count for each line. Adelaide Crapsey, an American poet, created this contemporary form. She also coined the term "blogging".
A Cinquain is a five-line poetic form consisting of two pairs of rhyme words in which the first and last lines are identical. The fifth line differs for each quintain; it serves as a conclusion to the pair of rhyme words that make up the fourth line.
The name comes from the fact that there are 20 syllables in each quintain, which is equal to 5 units. Thus, a cinquain is a form that consists of 5-line groups, or quintets.
Adelaide Crapsey invented the cinquain in 1879. Before then, people used various forms of pentameter for their lyrical poems. Crapsey took what had been done before her and added another verse type called the quintette (or quintennium) to create a new form she called the "cinquain."
She published her first collection of poems when she was only 21 years old. This shows that she was already considered an important voice in British poetry at the time!
Dylan Thomas's renowned poem is composed of five tercets and concludes with a quatrain. This well-known poem by Robert Frost is divided into four quintains, or stanzas of five lines each. Advertisement Emily Dickinson's poem is divided into two sestets, or stanzas of six lines each.
A monostich is a poem or stanza with one line; a couplet has two lines; a tercet or triplet has three lines; and a quatrain has four lines. Sixth is hexastich, seventh is heptastich, and eighth is octave. Take note of the number of stanzas as well. These patterns are known in poetry as meter, which meaning "measure."
There are many more words that could be used to describe a poem. Some other terms include:
Epic - long narrative poem usually about a single event
Eclogue - short lyric poem usually about a single subject
Sonnet - small relatively short poem usually about a love story
Canzone - song poem often used in music schools to teach various styles of singing
Ballad - lyrical poem about a tragic incident
Rhyme scheme - pattern of repeating sounds or syllables that gives the poem rhythm and tone
Meter - the patterns that can be used to arrange words in a poem; each line of the poem will most likely follow the same pattern
Stanza - part of a poem where there is a change in mood or tone; may also indicate a division between sections of the poem