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Sam Kilkenny and Corey Bryan started Poetry Is Pretentious to help others get into poetry by providing daily prompts that are interesting and easy to complete.

This Week’s Form:
The Cinquain

As the name suggests, the cinquain is a poem of five lines. The most common variation of this form is the American Cinquain. It is heavily inspired by haiku and tanka in Japanese poetry. The Cinquain is a poem of five lines that have specific syllable counts. (2,4,6,8,2)

Rules of the Cinquain

  1. It is a poem of five lines
  2. It is a poem of twenty-two syllables
  3. The syllable count of each line is (2,4,6,8,2)
  4. It is typically unrhymed
  5. As always, bend the rules if you want to
  • Prompt 73 – Google Earth

    Prompt 73 – Google Earth

    Use Google Earth to go somewhere you’ve never been before. Use your 22 syllables to describe this brand-new experience.

    Example Cinquain:

    Oh, whoops!
    Sorry! Didn’t
    mean to just drop in here
    Google Earth has set me in your
    Garden

    Form of the week: Cinquain

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  • Prompt 72 – Decorating on a Syllable Budget

    Prompt 72 – Decorating on a Syllable Budget

    You can decorate your room with only the items that you can fit in this poem. It’s just like decorating your house on a budget. What makes the cut? And what could you live without?

    Example Cinquain:

    A bed
    Wait no, a door
    Oh, I guess I get both
    So a bed a door and I’m out
    of words

    Form of the week: Cinquain

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  • Prompt 71 – If You Could Be Any Animal

    Prompt 71 – If You Could Be Any Animal

    You can be any animal you want. You can be the birds that fly or the house cat that lounges all day. You can even be a worm if you want. What does your new life look like?

    Example Cinquain:

    A bear
    A polar bear
    So I could enjoy cold
    weather, and swim with the icebergs
    Up north

    Form of the week: Cinquain

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  • Prompt 70 – Your Ideal Commute

    Prompt 70 – Your Ideal Commute

    Work is an inevitable part of life, but what if the commute could be fun? Instead of sitting in traffic, what if you could ski to work? Fly on your broomstick? Take a helicopter? Or maybe it’s as simple as just being able to walk there. 

    Example Tanaga:

    Skiing down the mountain snow
    With laptop in my backpack
    Goldfish bag for mid-day snack
    And it’s off to work I go

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 69 – Channel your Inner Rugrat

    Prompt 69 – Channel your Inner Rugrat

    Remember when you were a kid even the little things seemed like big adventures? The slide could be Mt. Everest, the floor was always lava. Channel that train of thought and write about the little things.

    Example Tanaga:

    Longest couch you’ve ever seen
    Made for the perfect island
    I with for a submarine
    The lava makes me frightened

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 68 – Changing the Scene

    Prompt 68 – Changing the Scene

    Most writing takes place in your office, at your desk, at a coffee shop. Try and imagine (or do it, if you’re crazy enough) what it would be like to write from your laundry room or closet or bathroom. If you don’t have any spare rooms, imagine writing underneath your desk.

    Example Tanaga:

    It’s all legs and feet down here
    I really need to vacuum
    Lying on the floor is weird
    But it sure beats the bathroom

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 67 – Poem for a Song

    Prompt 67 – Poem for a Song

    Take some inspiration from a song and write a tanaga about it. Impromptu ekphrasis

    Example Tanaga:

    Dad always played Turn the Page
    When Mom wasn’t in the car
    It wasn’t right for my age
    But oh, man that song went hard

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 66 – Good Advice

    Prompt 66 – Good Advice

    Good advice always rhymes; otherwise, how would we remember it?

    Example Tanaga:

    When a person makes you mad
    Instead of thinking they’re bad
    Try and take a second look
    See what life they’ve undertook

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 65 – Time

    Prompt 65 – Time

    We are all so intertwined with time, it’s helpful to take a second to write about it. It can be about how fast it moves, how slow it’s going, there’s never enough, there’s way too much. Feel free to interpret it how you want!

    Example Tanaga:

    Time–could you hurry it up?
    I can’t stand this glacial pace
    I stand in line, face-to-face
    With a man who smells like crud

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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  • Prompt 64 – Ordering Food or Drink

    Prompt 64 – Ordering Food or Drink

    It’s easy to think about rhyming poetry in terms of art. Let’s try and break from the normal and imagine ordering food or drinks or something with a tanaga.

    Example Tanaga:

    “I’ll drink deep–gin and tonic
    Now, this might seem ironic
    The drink is so iconic
    If you can, hold the tonic”

    Form of the week: Tanaga

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