Quintain Poetry Research
By Mike Garofalo
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas
Cinquains, Quintets, Quintillas
Gogyohkas, Limericks, Wakas,
5 Liners and Onions
Research, Studies, Notes
Bibliography, Links, References
Webpages, Essays, Magazines
Definitions, Examples
Quintains: Bibliography, Links, Research
Syllable Counts for Quintain Poems
Should a Quintain Be Given a Title?
AA
The American Cinquain. By Sandy White. 2025, 90 pages.
Jenny Ward Angyal, award-winning tanka poet and author of Earthbound: Tanka-prose & Haibun, Only the Dance: Tanka Threads and Moonlight on Water: Tanka. Her Blog.
Artificial Intelligence = Ms. Ai = A Quintain Poem written by Ms. Ai.
There are NO poems by Ms. Ai on my Bundled Up Website.
BB
Ballroom
Bathhouse and Other Tanka. By Ishii Taatsuhiko and Hiroaki Sato.
Bellingham Quintain Rhyme Scheme
AAAAA
Examples:
AAAAA Bellingham Q #168, 1517, 1580, 1586, 1632,
# 1643, 1697, 1814, 1908
Bellingham Quintain Rhyme Scheme Prosody
A. raking rust colored leaves
A. from under a sweet gum tree
A. tossed by a November breeze
A. scattered randomly---
A. my head drips sweat free
- Mike Garofalo, # 1517
Suddenly, the wind did rise
Blowing higher King Tides.
Spraying high on cliff sides,
Sucking sand side to side—
We stepped back. Mesmerized!
- Mike Garofalo, # 1586
Bucks on Roses: Selected Quintains. By Bill Knott.
Bundled Up: Quintains, Pentastichs and Tanka Poems
By Michael Peter Garofalo.
The 1,8000+ Quintains found on these Ad-free webpages by Mike Garofalo make use of punctuation and indentation, frequent rhymes, capitalization, hemistichs, enjabment, free verse, stops, similies, allusions, metaphors, haiku and senryu in unexpected places, typographical variety, and other common Western poetic techniques.
Mike Garofalo's webpage features over 1,800+ quintains, pentastiches, cinquains, wakas, and tankas by the author. Often featuring contemporary and Northwest USA settings. Flavored with Buddhist, Zen, Taoist, and Neo-Pagan spiritual themes. Peppered with pragmatism and process philosophy. Some minimalist English language contemporary style Tanka are included. A few longer sequences of quintains on specific topics or settings. Use of the 5252 and 555 and 553 Quintain Sonnet style.
Includes a detailed bibliography, links, notes, resources, quotations, quintain stylistic considerations, definitions of quintains, petastiches, and tankas, related research, and the author's writing and publishing objectives.
Here are comments on Mike Garofalo's quintain writing style and options.
His overall publishing approach?
Five Corners of Time. By Michael P. Garofalo. 2026, 110 pages, TextPreSS.
172 contemporary quatrains, pentastichs, quintillas, tankas, waka, quintets and onions. Quintain poems in both rhymed and free verse. Roughly arranged around 15 themes. Many selections from Mr. Garofalo's 1,800+
original quintains available for free online at Bundled Up: Volumes 1-5.
Bundled Up:
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas and Onions
By Mike Garofalo
Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000
Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500
Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000
Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500
Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000
Quintains: 2,100+ Quintains (Free Online)
Quintain Sonnet Forms ( 5252, 555, 553 )
Quintains: Bibliography, Links, Notes
Quintains: Cloud Hands Blog Posts
CC
Cambria Quintain Rhyme Scheme
ABCBC
Examples of the Cambria Style of Quintain:
# 2057, 2070, 2075, 2095, 2098
Can't but help
think in Two's
brain aligned so---
forced to choose
yes or no
- Mike Garofalo, # 2057
vanilla ice cream bar
on a stick
dipped in chocolate hot
rolled in peanut's thick---
dripping jackpot
- Mike Garofalo, # 2075
Captured by Cinquain: An Eclectic Collection of Cinquain Poetry. By Susan Pavloff Conner, 2017. 70 pages.
Cayucos Quintain Rhyme Scheme
AAABB Cayucos Q # 423, 765, 1243, 1459, 1759,
# 1807, 1810, 1892, 2142, 2508
Cayucos Quintain Rhyme Scheme Prosody
A Northern lights
A in the Pullman night
A an unusual sight—
B students gather for the colored show
B standing on muddied snow.
- Mike Garofalo, # 2508
Cinquain: "A cinquain is a poem or five-line stanza with a rigid syllable count for each line. This modern form was invented by American poet Adelaide Crapsey. The first line contains two syllables, the second line contains four, the third line contains six, the fourth line contains eight, and the last line contains two."
5 Lines in the Quiet Hour. By Michael Napoliello.
Cinquain Definition and Explanation
"American cinquains have inspired a number of variations, which are most often written by amateur poets.
Cinquain Poem Examples and Activities
Cinquain - Traditional By Judi Van Gorden
"The cold
With steely clutch
Grips all the land...alack,
The little people in the hills
Will die!”
- Adelaine Crapsey, Winter
only
a cloud of gnats
circling the dirty birdbath
inviting the midges who are
lonely
- Mike Garofalo, #214
Cinquains: Volume 1. By Stanley Crawford. 2011, 32 pages.
Cinquains. By E. M. McConnell. 2023, 122 pages.
Cinquains Two: A Dance of Thoughts and Feelings. By Patricia Doty. 2014, 122 pages.
Collected Cinquains. By Wordy McWord. 109 pages, 2023.
A Commonplace Book of Pentastichs. By James Laughlin. Edited by Hayden Carruth. Alibris Books, 95 pages, 1998. VSCPL. Early
"commonplace books" were collections of quotations in a small
book selected by and written down by the reader.
Collage Quintain Rhyme Scheme
Uses quotes from other sources to construct all or part of a quintain stanza or quintain sonnet sequence on a theme. Should include reference footnotes to the source of the quote or quotes. Example:
In general, be more specific.
Absolutes squirm beneath realities.
Dogmatists are less useful than dogs.
Roundness is the Holy Shape.
The real "miracle" is cause and effect.
Pulling Onions
Over 1,000 Quips
One Liners, Epigrams
- Mike Garofalo, #221
Coos Quintain Rhyme Scheme
ABCBB
Examples:
ABCBB Coos Q #669, 1213, 1577, 1767, 1784,
# 1984
Coos Quintain Rhyme Scheme Prosody
A. We don't really know Why
B. The Seasons come and go.
C. Always on schedule.
B. Ready for a Show!
B. They just Do It! You know!
- Mike Garofalo, # 1767
Crapsey's Cinquains
Crapsey, Adelaine (1878-1914) American cinquain poems. "The five-line cinquain poetic form she created reflected her life. The first four lines build up "expectancy" only to be followed by a one stress line as an "abbreviated conclusion."
The Crapsey Cinquain and Its Variations.
Adelaide Crapsey. Cinquains and Other Verse. By Adelaide Crapsey. New York, 1915, 2022, unpaged. Preface by Jean Webster and William Stanley Braithwaite, 1915. VSCPL.
"Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Vassar College, where she served as class poet three years in a row. After graduating, Crapsey taught history and literature at Kemper Hall in Wisconsin. She then studied at the School of Archaeology in Rome. Around this time she began writing 'free verse', drawing influence from the French verse libre, Japanese hokku and tanka, and the work of Yone Noguchi (among others); and in the early 1910's Crapsey developed an unrhymed 5-line poetic form called the 'ciquain', modeled in part on tanka. Unforunately, Crapsey's life was plagued with illness, and she died in 1914 at the age of 36."
5 Lines in the Quiet Hour. By Michael Napoliello.
"Listen...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall."
- Adelaine Crapsey, November Night
"How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon."
- Adelaine Crapsey, Niagara
we were
off the same page
so we stopped and talked
strategized and calmly agreed
with her
- Mike Garofalo, # 170
"Still as
On windless nights
The moon-cast shadows are,
So still will be my heart when I
Am dead."
- Adelaine Crapsey, Moon Shadows
Then
wondering, on edge,
would the expensive gift given
communicate the message I wanted to
Send
- Mike Garofalo, #280
DD
Dance to the World: Tanka Society of America, Twentieth Anniversary Anthology. Edited by Michael Dylan Welch. 2020, 108 pages.
"A didactic quintain is a simplified version of the American cinquain,
primarily used in educational settings to teach poetry to children.
It
follows a specific structure:
The first line is a noun
The second line contains adjectives that describe the noun.
The third line has an action.
The fourth line includes a longer description.
The fifth line is a noun that relates to the noun in the first line.
This format helps convey messages in a clear and memorable
way, making it suiting for teaching concepts in various subjects."
- Internet Website Information
Didactic Quintain Examples: # 1551, 1852
Diving Deep Into the Structure of Cinquains
Doggerel Quintains, Limericks, Sexuality
EE
Ekphrastic Poetry. Combining a picture or drawing with a poetic interpretation.
English Quintain Rhyme Scheme
ABABB
Examples:
ABABB English Q #726, 1197, 1498, 2135
English Quintain Prosody
A. Colored flashes in the window pane
B. Christmas lights glowing red and green.
A. The homeless man has no name,
B. Sits in cold dark tent unseen,
B. Wearing a sock cap of red and green.
- Mike Garofalo, # 726
English Quintain: "The English quintain follows a rhyme scheme of ABABB, in which the final two lines form a rhyming couplet. Though an English quintain requires an ABABB rhyming pattern, there is no established foot or measure." Examples:
"In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
A. Thinking is a thing with thorns,
B. Loving is a thing with weather,
A. Hating is a thing with horns
B. "Hope is a thing with feathers"
B. Happiness is a thing with treasures.
- Mike Garofalo, #1197
Envelope Quintet: "An envelope quintet is a five-line verse in which the inner lines are enclosed by the rhyming outer lines. The rhyme scheme may look like ABCBA, ABCAB, AABAA, or ABBBA (in which the middle lines form a rhyming tercet)."
"An Envelope Quintet is a 5 line verse in which the center lines are enclosed by the rhyme of the outer lines. The elements of the Envelope Quintet are: Stanzaic, a quintet may be a stand alone poem or can be written in any number of 5 line stanzas; meter at the discretion of the poet; rhymed abcba or aabaa or abbba , subsequent stanzas may link or continue the rhyme scheme: linked abcba cdedc or abcba deced / continued is simply abxba cdxdc etc. x being unrhymed."
Envelope Quintain Rhyme Prosody:
A Always keep an apple
B By your bed
C Granny Smith apples green
B Best for your lazy head
A As tasty as a Fuji frapple
- Mike Garofalo, #288
"Ever since seeing John Wayne
on the movie screen
I've had a thing for the cowboy.
Like them long and lean
and if shy, I don't complain."
- Judi Van Gorder
"Opening my toybox after all this time
Those within saw my look and my shame,
They knew of my life, and was not to blame.
So I spoke with, Kanga and Wambi again,
Clearing memories covered in dust and grime"
- Ryter Roethicle
"This after-sunset is a sight for seeing,
Cliff-heads of craggy cloud surrounding it.
And dwell you in that glory-show?
You may; for there are strange strange things in being,
Stranger than I know."
- Thomas Hardy, He Prefers Her Earthly
Epigrams
William Soutar (1898-1943) He called his short poems, often quintains, Epigrams.
A Commonplace Book of Pentastichs, by James Laughlin, includes many quintains that are epigrams. Many of my own one-line aphorisms and epigrams are found in Pulling Onions, as well as in some of my quintains.
Eureka Quintain Rhyme Scheme
AABBB
Any number of syllables per line, rhymed forms, or free verse.
AABBB Eureka Q #7, 1554, 1584, 1883, 1960, 2122, 2148
"How are you son?
Got too much sun?"
His head was red,
The red had spread...
Sunburn---Bonehead!
- Mike Garofalo, # 2148
pretty lady
lovely baby
proud dad
friends glad
pleased granddad
- Mike Garofalo, #
1554
Exploring the Quintain Essay An excellent essay about Quintains from the Eminent Verse Hub.
FF
Fifteen Quintain Poems. (Oddly, nearly every one of the examples are Quatrains or Tercets??)
Five Corners of Time. By Michael P. Garofalo. 2026, 110 pages, TextPreSS.
172 contemporary quatrains, pentastichs, quintillas, tankas, and onions.
Extensive use of formal rhymed quintains.
The Five Hole Flute: Modern English Tanka in Sequences and Sets. Edited by Michael McClintock and Denis M. Garrison. Modern English Tanka Press, 2006. Out of Print.
Five Line Construction: Gorder, Judi Van (Tinker). Provides a very good explanation of 17 styles of Quintains. For each style-form of quatrain she provides a history of the form, the country of origin, evolution of the form, key aspects of the form, examples of the patricular form, and related information: Arkaham Ballad, Bob and Wheel, Clogyrnach, Crapsey Cinquain, English Quintet, Envelope Quintet, Lira, Limerick, Madsong Stanza, Quintilla, Flamenca or Seguidilla Gitana, Sicilian Quintet, Tanka, Cinquain - Traditional, Waka, and Ya Du.
5 Lines in the Quiet Hour. By Michael Napoliello. Short Poems, Random Thoughts, Epigrams, Cinquains and Nonsense. Second Edition. Ouroboros Publishing, 2024, 129 pages. VSCPL.
Forms
"Like many poets of his generation, Gallway Kinnell began by writing in rhyme and meter, regular stanzas, fixed forms, and later moved into more open forms. A parallel evolution takes place in the work of Robert Bly, James Wright, and W. S. Merwin, with whom he is often grouped, as well
as Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Donald Hall and others."
- Edward Hirsh
Four Blue Eggs: American Cinquains. By Susan Glassmeyer. 2022, 70 pages.
Four Decades on My Tanka Road: The Tanka Collections of Sanford Goldstein. By Sanford Goldstein. Edited by Fran M. Witham. Preface by Patricia Prime. Winfred Press, 327 pages, Second Edition, 2012. Selections from 6 of Professor Goldstein's books: This Tanka World, 1977; Gaijin Aesthetics, 1983; At the Hut of the Small Mind, 1992; Records of a Well-Polished Satchel, 1995; This Tanka World, 2001; and, Encounters in this Penny World, 2005. Includes a selective bibliography, and a biography of Professor Goldstein. Some introductory notes. Over 500 Tanka in this attractive anthology. Good paper and clear crisp print. $22, Paperback. VSCPL. Professor Sanford Goldstein (1925-2023) is often called the "The Grandfather of English Tanka." These Tanka are nearly all in lower case, using only a comma or dash for punctuation, 5 concise lines, mostly free verse style. He includes more gritty, earthy, and intimate aspects of living. These poems reflect many of his experiences while living in Japan for decades. Sometimes, the stark brevity of the Tanka style can lead one to the edge of insight, but they are often too thin to hold up the pants of a deeper understanding. I reviewed this book for Amazon. VSCPL.
GG
Garofalo, Michael Peter
Bundled Up:
Quintains, Pentastichs, Quintillas, Tankas, and Onions
By Mike Garofalo
Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000
Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500
Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000
Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500
Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000
Garofalo Quintain Sonnet Style: 555, 5252 and 553.
Five Corners of Time. By Michael P. Garofalo. 2026, 110 pages, TextPreSS.
172 contemporary quatrains, pentastichs, quintillas, tankas, and onions.
Extensive use of formal rhymed quintains. Roughly arranged around 15 themes.
Garofalo Quintain Rhyme Scheme
AABBC
Garofalo Quintain Prosody
A He a long-haired dandy
A Free living, wild, randy;
B His signature, a green carnation
B His plays a London sensation---
C Oscar Wilde... long before Stonewall.
#1680
Examples: # 791, 1616, 1680, 1803, 2210, 2214, 2224, 2243
I have chosen this form because it allows me to use
alternating rhyming couplets. It can be expanded to
Quintain Sonnet length (555) using rhyming couplets:
AABBC CDDEE FFGGA #2243
Gogyohka: Five Line Poetry. By Enta Kusakabe. Translated from the Japanese by Matthew Lane and Elizabeth Phaire. Revised and expanded edition. 2006, 103 pages. "Gogyohka literally translates as "five-line verse". It is an evolution of the great Japanese tradition of short verse, but unlike its predecessors Haiku and Tanka, it has no fixed syllable pattern. The great strength of the Gogyohka form is this simplicity. It is intended to be easy for people to write. Indeed Gogyohka's accessibility and its power to speak directly to the heart and mind stem from the simplicity of its form."
Gogyohka Poems by Mike Garofalo. Over 2,100 quintain poems.
Graceguts Website: Michael Dylan Welch. An outstanding, full-featured,
award winning, and long standing website. Excellent coverage of Haiku
and Senryu in the English language. Deep levels of information about
events, publications, new poems, analysis, history, bibliography, etc. This
website is a major contribution
to the subject! Some Tanka and Renga
are included. Mr. Welch is also a publisher, editor, and reviewer.
Many of
his fine short poems are included.
HH
Haiku and Senryu Poems by Mike Garofalo. Arranged by the months of the year. Composed from 1998-2025.
Hedgerow: Journal of Small Poems
II
"Regular metre to this impressionist poetry is cramping, jangling, meaningless, and out of place. Into the delicate pattern of images and color it introduces the heavy, crude pattern of rhetorical verse."
- T. E. Hulme (1883-1917)
"Ezra Pound's doctrine of the image does not provide for connections between images; poetry is to proceed by a series of instantaneous, intense perceptions, a "sense of sudden growth." Traditional narrative is nearly impossible within this canon, though a narrative of indirection and accretion may sometimes come into being."
- Harvey Gross, Sound and Form in Modern Poetry, p. 105
1751.
"Streaks of green and yellow iridescence
Silver shiftings
Rings veering out of rings
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
swallowing them,
Fish."
- Amy Lowell (1874-1925), An Aquarium
1716.
no verb poems:
motionless ball
graffiti on a wall
clouds in a watercolor
pistons in a motor
The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu: Women of the Ancient Court of Japan. Translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani. Vintage, 1990, 240 pages. VSCPL.
JJ
Japanese Death Poems. Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death. Compiled with an introduction by Yoel Hoffmann. Tuttle, 1986, biographies, notes, 351 pages. VSCPL.
KK
LL
Last Mile on the Tanka Road. By Sanford Goldstein. 2023, 140 pages. It was reported that Sanford Goldstein wrote 10-20 Tanka every day. Amazon offers a number of books by this author. Professor Goldstein was a distinguished translator, anthologist, critic, and well known Tanka poet. He passed away in 2023 in Japan at the age of 98. Some people call him "the Father of English language Tanka."
Lear, Edward. Book of Nonsense. Limericks, 1846.
Limerick Quintain Rhyme Scheme
The quintains I call "Limericks" must follow the AABBA rhyme schme.
However, the lines might vary in syllable count, rhymed or free verse,
typography, etc. They don't necessarily, as in the definition below,
require the writer to use iambic tetrameter or trimeter, although
doing so is just fine. Indeed, Limericks are often funny, crude, bawdy,
and offbeat; but, need not be.
AABBA Limerick Quintain Rhyme Scheme Examples:
#577, 927, 1113, 1642, 1652, 2067, 2068, 2069, 2078, 2092
"The limerick follows a rhyming scheme of AABBA. The “A” lines are composed using iambic tetrameter, while the “B” lines are written in iambic trimeter. Limericks usually stand alone as a five-line poem and often contain bawdy or humorous subject matter."
There Once Was a Limerick Anthology. Edited by Michael Croland. Dover, 2022, 96 pages. VSCL.
Little Poems. Edited by Michael Hennessy. Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series. 2023, 256 pages. Harcover, VSCL.
Around the World in Five Lines. By James B. Anstead. 2021, 48 pages.
Limericks by Mike Garofalo. Over 1,800+ quintain poems. Some Limericks.
Limerick Examples:
"There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"
- Edward Lear
"The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical."
- Edward Lear
"God’s plan made a hopeful beginning.
But man spoiled his chances by sinning.
We trust that the story
Will end in God’s glory,
But at present the other side’s winning."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"There was a young lady named Sally,
Who enjoyed the occasional dally.
She sat on the lap
Of a well-endowed chap,
And cried “Sir! You’re right up my alley!”
"A flickering flame, on the wall
The sound of a, coyotes call
The desert winds, singing at night
Sandstorms dancing, in the moonlight
Embracing lovers, to befall"
- Pat Bibbs
Crawling out the hole
Dug by the busy mole;
He looked around, frowned,
then burrowed back down
into his cozy tunnels below.
- Mike Garofalo, #927
MM
Mad in Translation: A Thousand Years of Kyoka. By Robin D. Gill. Paraverse Press, 740 pages, 2009. Humorous, witty, naughty, earthy, sexual, bawdy.
Martin Buber in Pentastich Light. By Martin Wasserman. XLibris, 2019, 62 pages.
Masele, Deanna. Writing Evangelist Blog.
Master Class on Quintains
Here are the Eight most common types of quintains:
Cinquain, English Quintain, Limerick, Spanish Quintain,
Pentastich, Sicilian Quintain, Tanka, Envelope Quintet.
"A quintain (also known as a quintet) is any poetic form or stanza that contains five lines. Quintain poems can contain any line length or meter."
McClintock, Michael Winston (1950-): Website, Hyper Texts, Anthology, AYSO Flash.
Mendocino Quintain
AABCC Also called an Envelope Quintain, Pepperwood
AABCC Mendocino Q # 69, 538, 1225, 1869, 1980,
#
2267, 2491, 2743
Mendocino Quintain Prosody
A The Fates changed trucks in Crescent City
A Carried their Precious to Yachat's gritty
B Guarded the Sacred with scabbard knives.
C They ran, those Fates, chased by destinies,
C Fearing free will, trapped by realities.
- Mike Garofalo
Metre in Quintain Poetry
I don't think I am qualified to discuss this here.
I don't have a personal sense of how this works.
Stressed and unstressed stuff just drives me mad.
How is the pace, the rhythm--- specified, analyzed?
I need to study this subject more in 2026.
When here // the spring // we see
Fresh green // upon // the tree
The phrase 'when here' or 'we see" are considered a FOOT.
The bolded word is stressed.
There are other diacritical marks used in scansion annotations.
Each line in the above couplet is a three-foot line, a trimeter.
The number of syllables in the above couplet are 6 per line.
The above couplet uses an iamb foot.
Iamb: a light stress followed by a heavy stress.
Touchee: a heavy stress followed by a light stress.
Names of Metrical Lines According the Number of Feet Per Line
A one-foot line is called a monometer.
A two-foot line is called a diameter.
A three-foot line is called a trimeter.
A four-foot line is called a tetrameter.
A five-foot line is called a pentameter.
A six-foot line is called a hexameter.
A seven-foot line is called a heptameter.
An eight-foot line is called an octameter.
To Learn about Metre (Meter) in poetry, I am Studying:
Mary Oliver, Rules for the Dance: Writing and Reading Metrical Verse
Robert Beum and Karl Shapiro, The Prosody Handbook
Alfred Corn, The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody
James McAuley, Versification
Charles O. Hartman, Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody
Annie Finch, Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters
Brad Leithauser, Ryme's Rooms
Butte College: Meter and Related Topics
My complete reading list.
Go Instead, For Now, to Syllable Counting for Quintains
"Meter's relationship with time is far simplier that rhyme's,
since meter is at home in an endless present. Evenly it slogs
onward, not looking back. Recall: Meter is prospective;
rhyme is retrospective."
- Brad Leithauser, Rhyme and Rhyme Decay
Minimalist Quintain Tankas
ABCDE Minimalist Tanka Q #7, 141, 222, 1769
Examples of Minimalist Tankas:
in-breath
out-breath
unconsciously
enables me
to consciously be
- Mike Garofalo, #7
alone
on the trail
steep switchbacks
ahead—
my autobiography
- Mike Garofalo, #141
unseen
unknown
unspecified
unconnected
unborn
- Mike Garofalo, #222
I'm a poet
of a body, not
a poet
of a soul, yes
I sing solo.
- Mike Garofalo, #5
Modern Japanese Tanka. Edited by Makoto Ueda. Columbia University Press, 1996, 288 pages.
A rather expensive $115.00 rare book.
A Monchielle Quintain stanza poem is usually six syllables, or iambic trimester, with a rhyme scheme of abcdc."
"I dream in arcane blue
as stars begin to shine,
in sleep, I feel your love
as heart entwines with grace,
I touch the night above"
- Jem Farmer, Arcane Blue
Mukhammas (Arabic 'fivefold') "refers to a type of Persian or Urdu cinquain or pentastich with Sufi connections based on a pentameter. And have five lines in each paragraph. It is one of the more popular verse forms in Tajik Badakhshan, occurring both in madoh and in other performance-genres."
Mullen, Harriet. Los Angeles, Tanka.
NN
New Tanga: Five Line Poems. By Otteri Selvakumar. 2018, 112 pages.
Nuernberger, Kathryn. The End of Pink, 2016.
OO
Okara, Gabriel. Spirit of the Wind.
PP
Pansies by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence, D. H. David Herbert (1885-1930) The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence. Wordsworth Poetry, 352 pages, 1994. VSCPL.
Pentastich: A pentastich is a 5 line stanza, regardless of meter or rhyme
scheme. Often in free verse without strong rhymes or meter. A stanza or
poem of five lines. The word 'penta' means five. The word 'stich' comes
from the Greek word 'stichos', meaning a line or verse.
Pentastich Poems by Mike Garofalo. Over 350+ pentastich poems.
Examples: ABCDE Pentastich Q #194, 585, 597, 1730, 2011
sleepless in pajamas
awake with worries—
mind buzzing
ideas racing...
moonless night
- Mike Garofalo, #194
Snow on Mt. Saint Helens
Chocolate on a vanilla ice cream cone.
A brown hat on her blonde head.
Green lottery tickets on a white table.
Waitress wiping the counter clean.
- Mike Garofalo, #597
In heated afternoons
I sit in the shade;
reading dead poets
still alive
in printed words on paper trees.
- Mike Garofalo, #585
The Quintain Couplet Poetry Book. By Rebekah Willhight.
Quintain Poetry by Mike Garofalo
Quintain Poetry - Wikipedia Poems with only five lines: Pentastich, Quintilla, Cinquain, Quintains, Quintets.
The Quintain Couplet Poetry Book. By Rebekah Willhite.
Quintain Sonnet Style: 555, 5252, 553. Used by Mike Garofalo.
Quintain Rhyme Scheme. By Pat Bibbs.
Quintain in Jousting:
"The quintain (from Latin "fifth"), also known as pavo (Latin "peacock"), may have included a number of lance games, often used as a training aid for jousting, where the competitor would attempt to strike a stationary object with a lance. The common object was a shield or board on a pole (usually referred to as 'the quintain'), although a mannequin was sometimes used."
Quintet: "A stanza of five lines. Also called a quintain, it appears in Svarious forms, from the clever English limerick (which rhymes aabba and thus relies on a principle of return0; and, the classical Japanese tanka (each line contains a set number of syllables: 5,7,5,7,7)... There seems to be something a little beyond reason and emotionally excessive in punching past the symmetrical quatrain. Thus the possibilities of five unfold..."
- Edward Hirsch, The Essential Poet's Glossary
RR
Research on Quintains, Pentastichs, and Tankas
Rexroth, Kenneth. Translator of Japanese and Chinese Waka, Tankas.
Rhymed Quintain: Using end rhymes, lead rhymes, or alliteration in a Quintain stanza. Example:
time has a rhythm
beyond ticktock—
a string quartet waltz
a dying walker's walk
a stewing pot
- Mike Garofalo, #193
A Quintain stanza poem line is often of around six syllables, or a iambic trimester, with a varied rhyme scheme or free verse.
Rhyme Schemes for Quintains
By Michael P. Garofalo
Q = Quintain Rhyme Scheme
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas, Quintillas
End of Line rhyme
Sorted by Rhyme Pattern
AAAAA Bellingham Q #168, 1517, 1580, 1586, 1632,
# 1643, 1697, 1814, 1908, 2282, 2284, 2329, 2343
AAABB Cayucos Q # 423, 765, 1243, 1459, 1759,
# 1807, 1810, 1892, 2043, 2142, 2508
AAABC Ferndale Q #824, 1742, 2118, 2153, 2158
AABAA Forks Q #477, 1801, 1858, 1866, 2385, 2575
AABAB Illwaco Q # 1648, 1740, 2230, 2388
AABBA Limerick Q #577, 927, 1113, 1642, 1652
# 2067, 2068, 2069, 2078, 2092, 2559
AABBB Eureka Q #7, 1554, 1584, 1883, 1960, 2122, 2148, 2457
AABBC Garofalo Q # 791, 1616, 1680, 1803, 2210, 2214,
# 2224, 2243, 2250, 2328
AABCC Mendocino Q # 69, 538, 1225, 1633, 1869,
#
1980, 2019, 2038, 2267, 2491, 2743, 2577
ABABA Sicilian Q #702. 1107, 1611, 2114, 2126, 2130,
# 2202, 2582
ABABB English Q #726, 1197, 1498, 2110, 2113, 2127, 2135,
# 2157, 2160, 2177
ABACC Inverness Q # 1788, 2062, 2131, 2147, 2182, 2515
ABBAA Spanish Q #862, 1464, 1465, 1485, 1575,
# 1666, 1800, 2211
ABBBA Queets Q #1609, 1743, 1776, 2180, 2190
ABBBB Newport Q # 1667, 1674, 1669, 2187, 2480
ABBCB Ventura Q #1000, 1618, 2136, 2490, 2120, 2450
ABBCC Yachats Q # 1781, 1804, 1505, 2020, 2024,
# 2032, 2033, 2040, 2045, 2097
ABCAA Astoria Q #2199, 2554, 2557
ABCBA Envelope Q #288, 1806, 2185
ABCBB Coos Q #669, 1213, 1577, 1767, 1784, 1904, 1909, 1984
# 2159, 2030, 2034, 2037, 2058, 2145, 2349, 2478, 2503
ABCBC Cambria Q # 2057, 2070, 2075, 2095, 2098
ABCCA Brookings Q #1113, 1967, 1974, 2207
ABCCC Fortuna Q #1460, 1777, 1865, 1955, 2383, 2387, 2390
# 2394, 2395, 2458, 2484, 2500, 2527
ABCDC Monchielle Q #1594, 2397, 2552, 2553, 2555
ABCDE Concrete Q #1203, 1441, 1473, 2093, 2144
ABCDE Crapsey Cinquains Q #170, 214, 280, 1191, 1489,
# 1499, 2258, 2327, 2366
ABCDE Didactic Q #1551, 1852
ABCDE Free Verse Q #4, 1730, 1861, 1867, 1877,
# 2039, 2081, 2238, 2489, 2516
ABCDE Gogyohkas Tanka Q # 1661, 1504, 1760, 1762
ABCDE Imagist Q # 1716, 1723, 1751
ABCDE Minimalist Tanka Q #141, 222, 1769
ABCDE Pentastich Q #194, 585, 597, 1730, 2011
ABCDE Prose Poem Q #1455, 1561, 1672, 1867, 1877, 2671
ABCDE Tankas Traditional Q #603, 604, 2021, 2031
ABCDE Wakas Q #603, 902, 1022, 2041
!@ #@! Shape/Concrete Q # 1441, 1203, 1731, 2055, 2073, 2074,
# 2088, 2093, 2144, 2234, 2316, 2357, 2405, 2455
X$&eG Typographical Q # 21, 187, 189, 470, 1012, 1203,
# 1553, 1940, 2004, 2074, 2179, 2589
xxxxx Collage Q #221, 2175
xxxxx Free Verse Q # 4, 1730, 1861, 1867, 1877, 2081,
# 2112, 2316
xxxxx If-Switch Q # 1505, 1939, 1955, 1967, 1974, 2020,
# 2030, 2045, 2096, 2097, 2258
xxxxx 1 Syllable Q # 2113, 2167, 2224, 2353, 2394, 2550
xxxxx 2 Syllables Q # 2122, 2173, 2180, 2222, 2247
# 2248, 2259
xxxxx 3 Syllables Q # 1983, 2110, 2114, 2118, 2200, 2214
# 2220, 2235, 2350, 2543
xxxxx 4 Syllables Q #
2148, 2153, 2157, 2190, 2196, 2219
# 2225, 2489, 2542
xxxxx 5 Syllables Q # 1633, 2112, 2176, 2182, 2207, 2275
# 2223, 2304, 2492
xxxxx 6 Syllables Q # 2120, 2177, 2205, 2212
xxxxx 7 Syllables Q # 2156, 2210, 2224, 2245
xxxxx 8 Syllables Q #
2155, 2178, 2184, 2194, 2218,
# 2228, 2490
xxxxx 10 Syllables Q # 1980, 2126, 2135
xxxxx Nonsense Q # 2067, 2079, 2080, 2113, 2170, 2580, 2771
xxxxx Riddle Q # 636, 1199, 1906, 2059, 2055, 2072, 2094
# 2108, 2109, 2289
xxxxx Sonnet Q # 600, 904, 968, 1513, 2077, 2154, 2229,
# 2270, 2310, 2303, 2340, 2521, 2523, 2526, 2528,
# 2532, 2534, 2579, 2506, 2589, 2763, 2764
Quintains: 2,100+ Quintains (Free Online)
Syllable Counting for Quintain Poems
Quintain Sonnet Forms ( 5252, 555, 553 )
Quintains: Bibliography, Links, Research
Syllable Counting for Quintains
Updated on February 6, 2026
Q = Quintain Rhyme Scheme
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas
End of Line Rhyme
Sorted by Scheme Title
Astoria Q = ABCAA
Bellingham Q = AAAAA
Brookings Q = ABCCA
Cambria Q = ABCBC
Cayucos Q = AAABB
Collage Q = XXXXX
Concrete Q = !@ 5 @!
Coos Q = ABCBB
Crapsey Cinquians Q = ABCDE
Didactic Q = ABCDE
English Q = ABABB
Envelope Q = ABCBA
Eureka Q = AABBB
Ferndale Q = AAABC
Forks Q = AABAA
Fortuna Q = ABCCC
Free Verse Q = ABCDE
Free Verse Q = xxxxx
Garofalo Q = AABBC
Gogyohkas Tanka Q = ABCDE
Iambic Pent Q = xxxxx
If-Switch Q = xxxxx
Ilwaco Q = AABAB
Imagist Q = ABCDE
Inverness Q = ABACC
Limerick Q = AABBA
Mendocino Q = AABCC
Minimalist Tanka Q = ABCDE
Monchielle Q = ABCDC
Newport Q = ABBBB
Nonsense Q = xxxxx
Pentastich Q = ABCDE
Prose Poem Q = ABCDE
Queets Q = ABBBA
Riddle Q = xxxxx
Shape/Concrete Q = !@ #@!
Sicilian Q = ABABA
Sonnet Q = xxxxx
Spanish Q = ABBAA
1 Syllable Q = xxxxx
2 Syllables Q = xxxxx
3 Syllables Q = xxxxx
4 Syllables Q = xxxxx
5 Syllables Q = xxxxx
6 Syllables Q = xxxxx
8 Syllables Q = xxxxx
10 Syllables Q = xxxxx
Tankas Traditional Q = ABCDE
Typographical Q = X$&eG
Ventura Q = ABBCB
Wakas Q = ABCDE
Yachats Q = ABBCC
Quintains: 2,100+ Quintains (Free Online)
Syllable Counting for Quintains
Quintain Sonnet Forms ( 5252, 555, 553 )
Quintains: Bibliography, Links, Research
Updated February 6, 2026
"The profane, the sctalogical, anything
the slightest bit shocking---in their
indecorousness, they make powerful
rhyme words."
- Brad Leithauser
Most effective rhyme: C1V1C2/C3VxC2:
e.g., tuft/roughed, name/fame, salt/vault
- Brad Leithauser, Rhyme and Rhyme Decay
"For my part, I should be as satisfied to play
tennis with the net down as to write verse
with no verse form set to stay me."
- Robert Frost
Riddles
727 Riddles, Jokes, Brain Teasers
Compiled by Mike Garofalo
Rielly, Edward J. (1943-) How the Sky Holds the Sun (AHA 1998).
River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko. By Yosan Akiko (1873-1942). Translations and editing by Sam Hamill. 1997, 160 pages. 91 Tanka and numerous longer poems.
Jim Ross. Daydreams Alongside Surf: Cinquian Magic
Rotella, Alexis (1947-)
Saigyo Hohsi (1118-1190) was a Japanese monk who wrote many tanka. For exmaple, Gazing at the Moon.
Seltzer, Jacob D. Haiku and Tanka author from Vancouver, WA. Author of numerous books. A Pacific Northwest poet, artist, and editor.
"I have been writing haiku, tanka, and haibun in English since 2006. I was a past managing editor of Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2023-2024). I am also the founding editor of Mayfly Editing and the Haiku Poet Interviews blog, and serve as a co-commentator for the Haiku Commentary blog with Nicholas Klacsanzky and Hifsa Ashraf. I am also an artist. My drawings and paintings can be viewed in my online art gallery."
Sequences of Quintains, Pentastichs, or Tankas. From 3 (555) to 15 quintain stanzas. For example: Stacking Stones, or The Gushen Grove Sonnets.
Sestets: A six line stanza that is part of a 8-6 Sonnet. Sometimes: ABABCC.
Sexain: A six line stanza, not part of a 8-6 Sonnet. Often free verse.
Shelley, Pat (1910-1996) Turning My Chair.
Sicilian Quintain Rhyme Scheme
ABABA
Examples: #702. 1107, 1611, 2114, 2126, 2130, 2202
Sicilian Quintain Prosody
A I always felt sorry for the fellow.
B He always had something to complain about.
A He was often rather politically shallow.
B He did not like women strong or stout.
A A sorry fellow who nobody could follow. #2126
"The Sicilian quintain employs an ABABA rhyme sequence. Though the original form of the Sicilian quintain had no specific form or meter, it is now common for it to be written iambic pentameter."
"R.S. Gwynn (Robert Garofalo Gwynn) invented a quintain form,
The Robert Gwynn-Garofalo Quintain form. This quintain is supposed
to be playful and tightly structured." Syllabic pattern: 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 12.
The rhyme scheme is ABABA." Its length makes it better suited to print publication rather than on a
cellphone readable webpage.
The Robert Gwynn-Garofalo Quintain
"The years have worn my body down;
and soon, I'll breathe my final breath.
Life has left me tired and rundown;
but I am not afraid of Death;
though I'll meet His gaze with a frown."
- Emile Pinet
"Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase."
- Philip Larkin, Home is So Sad
"And on and on it goes, on through endless time
Never letting go of the person we love.
Two souls always searching for a path sublime
Connected yet apart, always cognizant of
That to others we will always be, a paradigm."
- Ryter Roethicle
Sonnets
Quintain Sequences of Sonnet Length
i.e., The Four Quintain Sonnet Structural Forms
Studies by Mike Garofalo
5252 quintain + couplet + quintain + couplet
14 lines, stanzas with rhyme schemes or free verse
Examples: # 600, 904, 968, 1217, 2154, 2229, 2384, 2518, 2528, 2521, 2523
#2526, 2528, 2532, 2534
Mike Garofalo (5252):
Awakening: Wednesday, 2/5/2025, 3:33 am #2528
Chanting Canyon Streams #1217
Dreams of Gertrude Jekyll's Munstead Wood Garden #2518
Duplicate Webpages Not Loading #2521
Empty Beer Cans on the Golf Course #2532
Fourteen Acts I Do Every Day at 8o Years of Age #2523
Golfo de las Américas #2526
Listening to Change #2154
On the Road to Eureka #904
playing gods #600
Poetry: New Under the New
Prior Questions for the Tarot #968
The Pokeweed Sutra #2521
Riddles Unraveled #2384
The Ringing Gong #2530
Speaking of Cars Speaking
Spirit Quest in the Sierras # 2579
Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge #2534
Voyager Tarot Candlight Reading #50
Gushen Grove Sonnets by Michael P. Garofalo
555 quintain + quintain + quintain
15 lines, stanzas with rhyme schemes or free verse
Mike Garofalo Quintain Sonnet Examples 555
Examples: # 92, 932, 933, 939, 1513, 1931, 2006, 2049, 2077, 2099,
# 2131, 2175, 2243, 2254, 2576, 2853, 2925
John Ashbury, A Picture of J. A. in a Prospect of Flowers
Robert Bly:
The Poem
The Chinese Peaks
The Rainy September
Hilda Doolittle (H.D.):
Time has an end you say
William Everson, Jacob and the Angel
Mike Garofalo (555):
Alternatives of Two #2049
Best Way Forward # 2214
The Bloodless Sea #92
The Bottom Line #2175
Criteria for Action #2735
The Day My Religion Started to Die #2340
Double Visions #933
The Event: Number 16; She Was Fire #2788
A False Call to Men # 2506
Feathers in the Weeds #2243
Flotsams of Unknowns #2303
The Hanford Radioactive Blues # 2254
Here & Now @ #2374
Packed Into Anxiety #1968
Playing with the Table Box #2035
The Pleasures of Masochistic Conundrums #932
Quintains At a Minimum #2576
Running Out of Time #1513
Sand in my Face #2926
So What If? #1964
A Titled Quintain is a Sextet #2077
Bundled Up: Quintain Sonnets: Volume 5
We Spoke Softly # 2589
The West Edge Tour # 2925
Will Cherished Ideals Survive #2229
Philip Larkin:
Compline
Hard Lines
The Returning I
Song With a Spoken Refrain
Success Story
Young Woman's Blues
D. H. Lawrence:
Come Spring, Come Sorrow #2853
Turned Down # 2973
Audre Lorde, Love Poem
Marianne Moore, Feed Me, Also, River God
Howard Nemerov:
Date with the Rabbi
First Snow
To the Mannequins
The Vacuum
The Wheel King #2541
Octavio Paz:
Walking Through the Light #2099
Arthur Rimbaud, The Poor Man Dreams #2209
Christina Rosetti, By the Sea
William Stafford:
Entering History
Fixers
For a Lost Child
Freedom
The Gift
Haycutters
Ice Fishing
Jeremiah at Miminagish
A Life, a Ritual
A Memorial to My Mother
Midwest
My Mother Was a Soldier
No Praise, No Blame
Over the North Jetty
Right to Die
Security
Stereopticon
Vocation
The Wanderer Awaiting Preferment
Watching the Jet Planes Dive
Whispered in Winter
Witness
Diane Wakoski, Belly Dancer
W. B. Yeats:
The Mother of God
Remorse for Intemperate Speech #2710
The Road at My Door
The Rose of the World
The Stare's Nest in My Window
Bundled Up: 1,800+ Quintains, by Michael P. Garofalo
553 quintain + quintain + triplet
13 lines, stanzas with rhyme schemes or free verse
Examples: # 2175, 2241, 2596, 2766, 2770
Marge Piercy, Postcard from the Garden
Kay Ryan, The Theft
Mike Garofalo:
The Bottom Line # 2175
Seeing What We Want to See # 2766
Unhitched from the Eternal Now # 2770
Anne Waldman, The Asian Notebook
William Stafford: Across Kansas #2596
Quintain Sonnets by Mike Garofalo
Sonnet Form Studies by Mike Garofalo
554 quintain + quintain + quartet
14 lines, stanzas with rhyme schemes or free verse
Mike Garofalo Quintain Sonnet 554 Examples:
# 2654, 2663, 2763, 2764, 2765, 2767, 2768, 2769, 2771
Julian Bell:
An Epistle on the Subject Of # 2983
Mike Garofalo:
Dream Time of a Body-Mind # 2768
Five Elements Embracing # 2763
Flowers in the Skagit Valley # 2767
Here and Gone # 2663
Ice Crystal Streaked # 2771
Mountains Melted # 2764
Pointing in What Direction? # 2769
Radiate the Inner Smile #2654
Waiting: Then Suddenly # 2765
Soil, sea, sun, rain, sky ...
Five Elements embracing,
Intertwined in mind.
Unfathomable Matrix;
Scaffolds on scaffolds
Grounded in Otherness.
Below sky, gardener, bees, soil,
seeds, leaves, stems, roots, water...
Below wet cells embraced,
Below atoms dancing on Energy...
Deeper and deeper below
Into What?
A Plenitude, a sacredness.
Emptiness in full bloom.
- Mike Garofalo, #2763
Examples of longer poems using
5 line stanzas extensively or
exclusively:
Ted Berrigan, Words for Love
Christina Bok, Kalokagathia
Elizabeth Bishop:
Cirque d'Hiver
In a Room
North Haven
Sleeping on the Cieling
The Unbeliver
Billy Collins:
Animal Behavior
Sandhill Cranes of Nebraska
(detail)
Randy Crawford:
I Don't Wanna Be Normal #2310
Robert Creely, Self-Portrait
James Dickey: The Heaven of Animals
Emily Dickinson:
571, 1217, 1221, 1223, 1228
Robert Frost:
Bond and Free
In a Vale
Mike Garofalo:
At the Mysterious Pass # 2685
Devil's Lake in Lincoln City #2927b
Drifting to My Mind's Edge #2633
Arbitrary Associations Impending #2536
Bumps in the Logic Road #2760
Crash, Smashed! #2650
Dosewallips on the Fjord #566
The Olympic Curve on Highway 101
One Picture of Me #2620
Pulling Up Onions in April # 2683
Raven Broke Open the Magical Clam
These Dear Friends of the Buddha Mind # 2675
Thou Are Not That # 2679
Time Travelled to the Outskirts of Words #2783
Vampires in the Hoh Forest #2525
The West Edge Tour # 2925
Winter Rain Returns #1614
Wittgenstein's Remarks #2876
Louise Glück, Threshing
Paul Goodman:
The Weepers Towers in Amsterdam
Noah Eli Gordon, The Book of Forgetting
Robert Hayden:
Mystery Boy looks for kin in Nashville
Josephine Jacobsen:
How We Learn
Language as an Escape from the Discrete
Monosyllables
Gallway Kinnell:
Alewives Pool
To Christ Our Lord
Robert Lowell, Fall 1961
Thomas McGrath, A Letter for Marian
John Milton, Song on a May Morning
Marianne Moore:
A Carriage from Sweeden
The Plumet Basilisk
In the Days of Prismatic Color
Howard Nemerov:
Elegy of Last Resort #2544
The Scales of the Eyes
Frank O'Hara:
Edwin's Hand
Funnies
Hatred
Hunting Horns
My Heat
One Seeing Larry Rivers
On Rachmaninoff's Birthday
Poem
V. R. Lang
Chales Olson:
Gulf of Maine
Some Good News
Octavio Paz:
Ladera Este, East Slope
A Day in Udaipur
Arthur Rimbaud:
The Savior Bumped Upon His Heavy Butt
Squatting
Theodore Roethke:
Loves Progress
All the Earth, All the Air
It was the beginning winter
Highway: Michigan
The Tranced
The Dying Man
Winfield Townkey Scott:
Five for the Grace of Man
Kim Stafford:
Tove Jansson's Island
Wiliam Stafford:
A Bridge Begins in the Trees
An Introduction to Some Poems
At Our House
At the Un-National Monument
A Family Turn
Father's Voice
Fifteen
For a Lost Child
From the Move to California
How These Words Happened
Lake Chelan
A Memoria: Son Bret
Mother's Day
My Life
Our Kind
Run Before Dawn
Serving with Gideon
A Star in the Hills
Sky
Story Time
Things That Happen
Ultimate Problems
A Walk in the Country
The Way I Write
Derek Walcott:
Forest of Europe
Theodore Weiss, A Dab of Color
Mark Van Doren, Family Pride
Paul Verlaine:
Bournemouth
Nightmare
Sequidilla
Snow in the Midst
A Widower Speaks
I have also searched in many book editions that I own
or from the County Library,
and I have found No Quintains or
a few rare Quintains in the collected poetic works of:
John Ashbury, Ted Berrigan, Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Bishop,
e. e. cummings,
Robert Creely, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, William Everson, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure,
W.S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich,
Arthur Rimbaud, Derek Walcott,
William Butler Yeats,
Walt Whitman, etc.
Most of the writers listed above were writing in the 20th
Century. Most wrote free verse. Most wrote long poems,
and a few in a short verse style like Emily Dickinson. Many
wrote prose poems. Most favored using quatrains,
couplets, sextexts, octets, one-liners, and mixed length free
verse style poems.
The Quintain is favored by writers of Epigrams and
Moralisms. Many 20th century poets dislike being
too preachy, although social-political-cultural wars
have taken caualities in the poet ranks. Yet, still,
every good writer is hoping to write the perfect
Epigram that will become popular.
William Stafford uses the quintain form quite
frequently. Louise Gluck frequently uses one
quintain in longer poems. D. H. Lawrence offers
one quintain stanza in many of his poerms.
William Soutar (1989-1943) He called his short poems, often quintains, 'Epigrams.'
Space Chanteys: An Astronautical Antiphonary of Heuristic Quintains for Travelers in Space. By S. L. Vk.
Spanish Quintain (Quintilla)
ABBAA Spanish Q #862, 1465, 1485, 1575,
# 1666, 1800, 2211
Spanish Quintain Prosody
A. Two aphorisms and bourbon on the rocks.
B. Two witticisms and whipped cream on the pie.
B. Two comparisons that catch the keen eye.
A. Two images that knock off your socks.
A. Two contrasts that leave some shocked.
- Mike Garofalo, # 1465
they became electrified
kisses became candy
flesh became randy
sex became spry
he licked her hot thighs
- Mike Garofalo, # 1485
Spanish Quintain: "The Spanish quintain (also known as the quintilla) is a type of five-line poetry that is eight syllables in length, each line written in iambic tetrameter. It usually follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAA or AABBA, but this five-line poetry form can follow any rhyme scheme (including ABAAB), as long as no more than two consecutive lines rhyme at a time."
AABBA is most often called a Limerick rhyme scheme by me and others.
"Madrid, castillo famoso
que al rey moro alivia el miedo,
arde en fiestas en su coso,
por ser el natal dichoso
de Alimenó de Toledo."
- Nicolás Fernández de Moratín,
Fiesta de toros en Madrid
Stacking Stones: An Anthology of Short Tanka Sequences. Edited by M. Kei. Kei Books, 2018, 204 pages. VSCLP.
Stanzas
"A five-line stanza is called a quintain, a term apparently shunned by all except prosodists. With the cinquain, an outbreak of rhyme possibilities occurs— seventy-six, to be precise." p. 51
"A stanza could be defined as a device for cordoning off the formal duties a poem vows to fulfill." p. 24
- Brad Leithauser, Rhyme's Rooms
A Stanza at a Glance from Mark Strand and Eavan Boland:
1. Any unit of recurring meter and rhyme---or variants of them---used
in an established pattern of repetition and separation in a single poem.
2. The stanza can be made up of line of the same length. This is called
an isometric stanza.
3. The stanza can also be made up of lines of different lengths. This is called heterometric.
4. There can also bea a loose grouping of lines and paragraphs of verse.
This is called quasi-stanzaic.
5. The effect of the stanza is gained by the combination of accumulating
sense, from stanza to stanza, combined with repeated sound through
the repetition of lineation and rhyming."
- Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, The Making Of A Poem, p. 136
Sunflower Tanka: An Anthology of Tanka, Tanka Prose, and Experimental Tanka. Colleen M. Chesebro and Robbie Cheadle Editor. 2024, 126 pages.
George Szirtes Blog Ten Cinquain Variations on Sappho
Syllable Counting for Quintains
Note: In the first ten types, listed below, the number of
syllables per line must be the same for each of the
five
lines
in the quintain stanza.
1 Syllable Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 2224, 2394
nose
hole
blow
snot
out
- Mike Garofalo, # 2224
| my |
| Mind |
| moves |
| my |
| Time |
Mike Garofalo, # 2394
Each of the five lines in a 1 Syllable Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 1 syllable long.
Also called a monorhyme.
2 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 2116, 2180
statue
deep blue
sitting
so still
Sunday
- Mike Garofalo, # 2116
comely
cute lass
no sass
free pass
tempts me
- Mike Garofalo, # 2180
Each of the five lines in a 2 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 2 syllables long.
3 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: 2110, 2114, 2118, 2200, 2214, 2220
bright porch light
burning bright
all the night---
racoon licks
my dog's bowl
- Mike Garofalo, # 2118
Best Way Forward
clear thoughts
know a lot
good theories
few queries
confidence
reliance
power words
always heard
guiding us
helping trust
- Mike Garofalo, #2214
I worry
far too much
discouraged
down on luck---
in a funk
- Mike Garofalo, #2110
Each of the five lines in a 3 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 3 syllables long.
4 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 2148, 2153, 2157, 2160, 2190
"Some go local
Some go express
Some can’t wait
To answer Yes!”
- A Quartet by Muriel Rukeyser
"How are you son?
Got too much sun?"
His head was red,
The red had spread...
Sunburn---Bonehead!
Mike Garofalo, # 2148
Each of the five lines in a 4 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 4 syllables long.
5 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 1633, 2112, 2158, 2176, 2182, 2185, 2275
long day at the job
workout at the gym
dinner at the cafe
sorting all the cards
Bored at the thought ... Of doing it Again.
- Mike Garofalo, # 2112
Blinking Christmas lights
Turned off early tonight
Locked up the entire house
Turned on the lamp by me
Opened a book of poetry
- Mike Garofalo, # 1633
'Live in the moment'
My coffe cup says.
I live in moments
And they pass so fast---
The moment does last.
- Mike Garofalo, # 2182
Each of the five lines in a 5 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 5 syllables long.
6 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 2120
"The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy."
- Theordore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
Heceta Head Lighthouse
spinning slow in the storm
all sailors duly warned
of the dangers of the land
ahead on their course norm.
- Mike Garofalo, # 2120
Each of the five lines in a 6 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 6 syllables long.
7 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: 2156
"That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream
Gentles, do not reprehend: ..."
- William Shakespeare # 2156
"Sevens like these are often spoken of
as trochaic meter."
- Brad Leithauser
Each of the five lines in a 7 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 7 syllables long.
8 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 2178, 2184, 2202, 2293, 2490,
Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadworth Longfellow
Emotionally drained down,
bothered by worries and woes,
at the edge of loosing control;
got it back together, somehow---
curled in a ball and so dozed
- Mike Garofalo, # 2490
"Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these..."
- Andrew Marvel, The Garden #2155
"And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."
- William Butler Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus
Each of the five lines in a 8 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 8syllables long.
10 Syllables Fixed Quintain Poem
Examples: # 1980, 2135,
Mathematicians favor base-ten rules
poet's like iambic pentameter jewels
measuring stuff-things in sets of ten---
yet, for some strange unknown reasons why
I like poems in little sets of five.
- Mike Garofalo, # 1980
Each of the five lines in a 10 Syllables Fixed
Quintain Poem must be only 10 syllables long.
Syllables Mixed Quintains:
1. Crapsey Cinquain Syllable Mix: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2 Left Justified in Text
2. Garofalo Q Syllable Mix A: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 Right Justified in Table
3. Garofalo Q Syllable Mix B: 2, 4, 2, 4, 6 Right Justified in Table
4. Garofalo Q Syllable Mix C: 8, 6, 4, 2, 1 Left Justified in Table
5. Garofalo Q Syllable Mix D: 4, 2, 4, 2, 6 Right Justified in Table
6. Haiku Tercet Syllable Mix: 5, 7, 5 Varied Left Justification in Text
7. Tanka Syllable Mix: 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 Varied Left Justification in Text
8. Alternating Syllable Mix A: 6, 4, 6, 4
"Take her up tenderly.
Lift her with care.
Fashioned so slenderly.
Young and so fair."
- Thomas Hood, Bridge of Sighs
9. Alternating Syllable Mix B: 2, 4, 2, 4, 2
they ran
into the surf
full speed
screaming courage---
the plunge
- Mike Garofalo, #2025
10. Mirror Cinquain 8, 6, 4, 2, 8 8, 2, 4, 6, 8
11. 555 Garofalo Sonnet Quintain: AABBC CDDEE FFGGX #2214
TT
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4. Editor-In-Chief : M. Kei. 2012, 264 pages. "Six editors/judges from around the world read 18,000 Tankas and selected 400 of the best. Includes a very good informative introduction by M. Kei. Indexes of poets and poems. Nice clean, uncluttered paperback. The main editor, M. Kei, said this will be the last Take Five Anthology because he is suffering from poor health. All Tanka are mimimalist: lowercase, no punctuation, free verse, 5 lines, in English. Very good information on other sources for Tanka poetry. Some Tanka sequences are included. Overall, a fine collection for a reasonable price."
From my Amazon review. VSCPL.
"Contemporary tanka in English is an exciting literature that continues to grow and develop in the hands of increasingly diverse poets around the world. Originating in Japan over fourteen hundred years ago, it remains a strong and flexible form evoking profound responses in the reader. Although a tanka may be small as a pebble, it creates expanding ripples in the mind of a receptive reader, ripples that touch far shores, with the polished perfection of the poem as the still center of meaning and experience."
- M. Kei
Tanka: "The tanka is a Japanese form of quintain poetry. Much like a haiku, the tanka has particular syllable requirements. In Japanese, the tanka is written as one unbroken line consisting of 31 syllables, but when it is converted into English poetry, it is usually broken up into five lines. In this case, the first and third lines contain five syllables, while the second, fourth, and fifth lines contain seven syllables." The Master Class definition of the Japanese form. Contemporary English Tanka is different.
The Tanka Anthology. Edited by Michael McClintock, Pamela Miller Ness, and Jim Kacian. 2023, 231 pages. Here is my Amazon review: "800 of the best tanka in English by 69 of its finest practitioners. This is an outstanding collection of Tanka poems in the English language. Easy to hold in one's hands, light, compact, good quality print and paper. Very good choices by the highly qualified editors. Most Tanka are in the minimalist style: lowercase, no punctuation, 5 lines. For a paperback, a bit expensive at $34, but worth the higher price. Includes biographies of the authors. An informative introduction by Michael McClintock in the hardback book version, not in the paperback. Good enough for many rereads!"
Tanka Poems by Mike Garofalo. Over 1,000 quintain poems.
Tanka Poetry: A Home for Traditional Tanka
Tanka Poetry Books at Barnes and Noble
Tercets, Triplet, Haiku
Quintains are to Quartets, as Triplets are to Couplets.
Quintains and Triplets are an unbalanced, odd,
uneven, offbeat, irregular pair of poetic forms.
Many quintains have a 3/2 semantic Volta format.
A triplet offers four rhyme schemes: AxA, xAA, AAx, or AAA.
Quintain 'Sonnet' Sequences can be 555, 5252, or 553.
"The triplet has the allure of symmetry in a world increasingly at home with the irregular and uneven. If it runs the risk of superfluity (as when we feel like a third wheel), there's a welcome hint of waywardness and unpredictability. As such, in its literal oddness, it promises protection from forms of expression that seem quaint or stock or glib."
- Brad Leithauser, Rhyme's Rooms
Thematic Quintain Stanzas
and Quintain
Sequences
By Mike Garofalo
Aging
Animals # 2646,
Biloxi MS # 2556 - # 2565
Cloud Hands Blog: Eight Ways
Environment
The Five Senses
Hearing, Listening
Highway 101: Docu-Poems
Hood Canal # 566 - # 593
Lincoln City OR # 2927b-
Logic Bumbs # 2760
Quintain Sonnets
Seeing, Viewing
Smelling
Time # 2783, 2784
West Edge Tour # 2925 - # 2945
Wittgenstein: #233, 544, 846, 854, 1294, 1665, 1714, 2178,
#
2427, 2643, 2645, 2654,
2687, 2688, 2723, 2730, 2733,
#
2735, 2751, 2788, 2793,
2796, 2800, 2806, 2808, 2855,
#
2928, 2935, 2989
Writing Poetry:
Zen Buddhism: # 2727,
Texts Press Publications
Free Online Poetry and Studies
Vancouver, Washington
Texts Press Email
This Short Life: Minimalist Haiku. By Sanford Goldstein (1925-2023). 164 pages, 2014.
This Tanka Journey: A Tanka Poetry Chapbook: Collection of Experimental American-Japanese Poetry. By Susanna K. Hutcheson.
Three Part Harmony: Tanka Verses. By Debbie Strange.
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works. By Mike Garofalo. Includes haiku, tanka, quintains, rhymed verse, short and long poems. Ad-Free webpages. Google Translate drop down menu on each webpage.
Featuring: Docu-Poem: Highway 101 and 1. At the Edges of the West.
Tsujimoto, Isao. Voices from Japan.
Twara, Machi. Salad Anniversary, 1987
20th March: A Compilation of 27 Quintain Poems. By Ode Clement Igoni.
Typographical Quintain: Using unusual spacing, typographical arrangement, indentation, punctuation, capitalization, or broken words in a Quintain stanza. Mostly 5 lines; but, occasionally, 4 to 8 lines. Example:
e.
e.
cummings
Typ0
GraPH Ical
Obsc
UR
Ities
- Mike Garofalo, #189
Emily D. loved the em dash—
—not a macron or en dash—
to signal shifts of her mind—
—to highlight a verse's charm—
to strengthen or stop a line—
"First—Chill—then Stupor—
—then things letting go—" ED
- Mike Garofalo, #187
the hostess with the mostess
hosted another party fine
poured the wine
told jokes
dined
- Mike Garofalo, #459
UU
"The uta in Arthur Waley's translations from the Japanese are poems of five lines (also known as tanka, meaning short poem, or waka) in which the first and third lines contain five sound units or on (loosely translated as 'syllables') and the rest seven. Almost all classsical Japanese poetry is written in this form, which contrasts with the range and technical freedom of Chinese poetry."
- John Carey, A Little History of Poetry, p. 225
WW
Waka, By Judi Van Gorder.
"If only I had
Merely watched as they fell ---
The plum blossoms---
But, alas, their fragrance
Lingers still on my sleeve."
- Sosei (859-897)
The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. By William Stafford. Greywold Press, 1998, 268 pages.
The Way of Tanka. By Naomi Beth Wakan. Shantee Arts LLC, 2017,
146 pages. $15.00. VSCPL. Here is my Amazon review: "Tanka are brief 5 line poems, typically using 19-33 sound units, uncapitalized, with little punctuation. This is a good brief introduction and guide to the reading and writing of Tanka style poetry. Many fine Tanka are included and briefly analyzed. She provides a few insights into the proper construction of the Pivot Point, Turning Point, the Volta, the Twist, usually in the 3rd line. (I have added more comments on the Pivot Line above.) She emphasizes the importance of a dramatic and surprising phrase in the last 5th line. She makes clear that writing English language haiku cannot follow some Japanese Tanka standards or sensitivities because these two languages have many differences in the sound elements, homonyms, more rhyming in Hiragana, culture, and poetic heritage. The Tanka form has been used since 800 CE in Japan. She includes a few of her longer Tanka sequences. She discusses tanka collage, tanka montage, Haibun, McClintock's Taika, Kyoka tanka wit and humor, minimalist tanka, response/dialogue tankas, Ekphrastic tanka, love tankas, travel/place tanka, diary tanka, tanka strings, nostalgic tanka, tan renga, confessional tanka, and tanka sequences. Japanese terms like wabi, sari, aware - mono no aware, kyojo, makoto, shibusa, and kokora are briefly explained. Ms. Wakan provides a brief bibliography and lists of online resources. She talks about the authors that influenced her. A fine companion to The Tanka Anthology (Edited by McClintlock, Ness, and Kacian, 2023) or Four Decades on My Tanka Road: The Tanka Collections of Sanford Goldstein, 2012."
Michael Dylan Welch. Brief Biography. Graceguts Website.
Wind Five Folded: An Anthology of English-Language Tanka. By Jane Reichhold and Werner Reichhold. Gualala, CA: AHA Books, 1994.
Winner of the Quintain: A Writers's Notebook.
Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reading Wittgenstein by Mike Garofalo.
Mike Garofalo's Quintains dealing with topics related to my
studies in the philosophical work of Ludwig Wittgenstein:
Wittgenstein Related Quintains by Mike Garofalo:
#154, 155, 160, 233, 544, 846, 854, 1294, 1665, 2178
#
2427, 2643, 2645, 2654, 2675,
2687, 2688, 2723, 2730
#
2733, 2735, 2751, 2757, 2793,
2800, 2806
# 2808, 2854, 2855, 2863, 2876, 2928, 2983
Writing Haiku: A Beginner's Guide to Composing Japanese Poetry: Includes Tanka, Renga, Haiga, Senryu and Haibun. Tuttle, 192 pages, 2022.
YY
Yachats Quintain
ABBCC
ABBCC Yachats Q # 1781, 1804, 1505, 2020, 2032,
# 2045, 2097
Yachats Quintain Rhyme Scheme
A. As if
B. I reminded myself to forget
B. councelled myself to desist---
C. erased sour memories
C. abandoned false theories
Yoko Nagai. Japanese Tanka.
ZZ
Zen Poetry Anthology, Research, Bibliography, Notes. By Mike Garofalo.
Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Koans
The Fireplace Records
55+ Zen Koans by Mike Garofalo
ZZ Appendix 1
Random Notes on Quintains
By Michael P. Garofalo
1. First Things First
The first Quintain Rules are simple:
there are always five lines to a quintain stanza
a stanza of words grouped as five lines is a quintain
A good quintain stanza can become a brief poem
Its a Formal Constraint on the arrangement of
typography on a page: the quintain short poem should
display and show in five lines. It's a formal rule of a
game called 'Write a Quintain' or 'Stay in Five.'
Regarding the the number of lines allowed in
a stanza: five lines; like
five sentences in one
paragraph, five fingers for one hand.
Yes, quintains are stanzas; short five line poems.
They are brief poems of five lines.
Quintains might be compared to a succinct
brief
direct paragraph using only five sentences as statements.
The are an object with five parts.
2. Standing On Your Own Five Feet
The first use of the quintain is as a stand alone poem.
A single poem of only five lines. Just one quintain stanza;
a poetic paragraph of just five crafty sentences. One quintain
stanza stands alone on one page and somehow says
something simply meaningful.
One quintain (waka, tanka)
brushed on a scroll---
ideas made sharable
Each quintain can stick out alone, like a small billboard sign on a road.
Like a D.O.T. flashing sign in the freeway night.
Nearly all of the quintain verses
in Bundled Up are presented as
stand alone art; a few are decent quintain poems.
They are to be read as a free-standing unit pointing
to some smaller aspect of experience, some temporary
shady resting places on El Camino, to some possible
shared insights, to where I was in place and time and
where we can share in words our lives.
Yes, sometimes like a mere doodle, a pencil sketch,
a social media post, a selfie of me in class.
Sometimes, when thinking Transcendentally,
mystically, magically, mysteriously, optimistimically,
... I see a few specks of Universals flash in my
poor poetic prospector's panning pan.
All those homey analogies might be an overgrown
octogenarian's offhand assides to holding on to
fading memories. Little blocks, little blurbs,
little quintains grasping what was handy.
She was fond
Of one single stanza
Of one tiny poem
Of one glimpse
Of a time
Hopefully, the reader of One Stanza will play
with it as one single poem, and will have some
shared experience, even over the seemingly
insigificant, ordinary, and overlooked in
our busy daily lives.
Snapshot!
35mm film costs.
digital camera costs.
cellphone camera costs.
Emily Dickinson's drawing on used envelopes.
Last Comments on the topic of Quintain Stanzas on January 14, 2026
3. Quintains: Freedom or Bondage
There is considerable freedom when choosing to write quintains to vary the length of each of the five lines, the number of syllables per line, the meter of the lines, the rhymes of the lines, the typographical layout of the printed text, the fonts and colors of the lines, how the five lines of text interact with each other semantically, melodiously, poetically, syntactically, etc.
4. History of Quintain Poetry Usage
Quintains were used very infrequently in English language poetry for many centuries. The English poets have favored publishing poetry predominately featuring poetic quartets, couplets, sextets, and octets. Ballads and songs used quartets alsomst eqclusively. Rarely do we see any quintains used to any extent in the wide-body of Western literature. There is virtually no use of quintains in post-modern poetry.
Poets from China and Japan have for centuries made extensive use of short poems like quintains and these are called wakas, tankas, and gogoyakas. Translations of many of these short poems were and are rendered into English and displayed in five lines as a quintain stanza, often untitled. Many poets writing in the English language write short poems in a similar style I call "minimalist tanka: typically: left justified, no punctuation, lower case, tri-metered, unrhymed, in English, quatrain, clever volta/twists, etc.
Writers of quintains are now found all around the world in the 21st Century--- writing in many languages.
Last Comments on the topic of History on January 2, 2026
5. On Titles for Quintains
Should the poetry writer of one quintain stanza give it a title?
Nearly all of the first 1,700 original
quintain poems in my Bundled Up Series
are untitled. Starting from number 1800,
all of my quintain poems are titled.
Each quintain can stick out alone, like a small billboard sign on a road.
Like a D.O.T. flashing sign in the freeway night.
Now, however, when you add a title to a quintain, then you have something like a sextet. Yikes! Ouch!
Am I cheating on some
written or unwritten Tanka Quintain Rule? Certainly, nearly all the minimalist tanka that I have read in books,
chapbooks, ebooks, webpages, and zines
are untitled.
Minimalist tanka are a subset of Quintain Poetry, and their familiar and frequent occurence in the English short poem literature is a boom for the quintain genre. Read the fine anthologies by Michael McClintock and M. Kei to delve into the minimalist tanka literature.
As for quintains, they can be untitled or titled as the author or editor so wishes. {my mpg rules}
The title adds one more line of information to supplement the original five line quintain's message or tone.
Just one extra line, that clever title, greatly increases the complexity of the ideas and messages (if any) that can be conveyed.
Titles help with remembering! We all remember one liners from a great verse {"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."] and/or one title from a great poem or fiction or film or song {The Cantos, Magic Mountain, The Sound of Music, Jumpin Jack Flash}.
Good Titles Sell! Just the simple title "Star Wars" is unforgettable to my generation. Two of the most popular songs titles of all time since 1920 are "Summertime" and "Yesterday."
Choosing a good title for a quintain poem is part of the art of the poetry
writing craft. Coming up with the best meaning, sound, and pace in a new title can be a
challenge for the writer or editor trying to somehow match, amplify, summarize, tease out, hint at, or otherwise compliment the five existing lines of the quintain. Some writers have intentionally chosen obscure-abstract meaningless-nonsese titles, some with nothing to do with the following poem, just to leave some bony carcass for the critic-scholar wolves to chew on at midnight, and freaking frustrate us less intellectual readers.
One line, the title of the poem, in
Italicized text, at the head of a poem,
Gets the ball rolling, hints at
something sensitive, catches a clue;
Once Upon a Time, headline news.
One line, the title of the quintain, does
Set the Stage, introduces ideas,
Guides expectations, sprinkles
innuendos, catches other clues;
the titles's information opens up the New.
Just one extra line, that damn title,
Sticking out like a sore thumb? bum? mum?
Like stained underwear on an outdoor clothes line.
Like a title for a couplet? what gives?
Like a nametag on a lost dog? maybe.
It's a little lie, a little secret, a quintain with a
title is a sextet in disguise.
Using a title for a quintain provides one extra
line of text and one blank line to the overall
block length of a quintain poem. Using a title
means using more of the typographic presentation
space. The title adds something to the semantic space.
Writing sextets is a whole subject worthy of
investigation and study. I am here just noting
that adding a title for a quintain stanza enables
the author to enter the realm of sextet thinking.
Sixfold streams of information, some intelligible,
some not; but, increasing the flow into the Bay
of Words that will float the author's little boat of ideas.
The last word of the title can be interwoved with the
last words of each of the five lines of the quintain to
create a new and interesting sextet rhyme scheme.
The metric pace of the title can define the metric
pace of the entire 6 lines.
The title can
create an
initial pace, a rhythm,
a skip in our quintain's
poetic steps.
Last Comments on the topic of Titles on January 24, 2026
6. Some translators have turned quintains into Quatrains (e.g., Fitzgerald's Rubiat). Likewise, I have turned some long Sextets into quintains, and some wordy Quartets into quintains.
7. A Quintain stanza does not limit the line length of any of the five lines of that stanza. One line could be one word and another line a very long line up to the limit of the right page margin.
I write more for the online publication of digitalized Text that is read on cellphones, and can quickly be translated into many languages by artificial intelligence program bots. Of course, the same text can also be read on tablets, laptop, and desktop screens. Quintain poems are excellent for cellphone readability, since each of the five lines tend to be shorter.
Therefore, my cellphone quintains are infrequently written in the popular iambic pentameter sized lines because of the cellphone right margin limitations. Too long of a line will result an machine set automatic end stop at a point that the poet does not want it to stop.
8. Random Notes on Quintains by Mike Garofalo
There is much emphasis, for all poetry and song, on the subject of rhymes. So, with just five lines per quintain stanza, a unit of 5 lines, a paragraph of five sentences, {per the Quintain Formalist Rules}, ... what and how do we deal with rhymes, use rhymes, handle rhymes in the Quintain poem.
In the Cayucos Quintain Style, we consider the last word in each line, then we make those five words rhyme in this order:
AAABB = Cayucos Quintain Rhyme Scheme
Examples:
AAABB Cayucos Q # 423, 765, 1243, 1459, 1759,
# 1807, 1810, 1892, 2142, 2508
no, snow, blow, dicey, icy
power, flowers, showers, bring, sing
air, everywhere, prayer, light, white
lights, nights, sights, show, snow
memorium, stand, hands, read, dead
day, play, away, side, hide
time, climb, rhyme, pain, rain
dog, play, away, pride, hide
haze, daze, maze, slow, go
fly, why, pass by, mind, kind
AAABB Cayucos Q # 423, 765, 1243, 1459, 1759,
# 1807, 1810, 1892, 2142, 2508
9. Should you capitalize the first letter of the first word in each of the five lines of the quintain stanza?
Virtually all traditional English language poetry capitalizes the first letter of the first word in each line of a quartet stanza, and similiarly for the few quintain stanzas written. This convention goes back 500 years. Even many
writers today follow this convention.
Since the free verse trends of the 20th Century, many others have not
capitalized the first word of a line, indented the first word, and otherwise
fiddled with the previous conventions for rhyme and meter.
I do not always capitalize the first letter of the first word in a quintain
stanza. I sometimes don't capitalize any letters in a quintain stanza. I don't
sometimes capitalize titles for quintain stanzas. I do use bold, italics, and
capitalization for effect at times.
10. Tips on Writing Quintains
a) Don't hesitate to use interesting and engaging comparisons to improve
your writing. Use similies, metaphors, puns, contrasts, contradiction, personification,
synesthesia, apostrophe, or nonsensically to embellish and enliven your quintain verses.
b) Don't hesitate to use varied spacing, indentation, emjabment, hemistichs, different table structures for varied typographical
layouts, centering, margin alignments, concrete poems, and
wild and interesting typographical layouts. Consider the
limitations of cell phone screen width.
c) Don't hesitate to use varied type fonts, font size, bold, italic,
underline, capitalize, and colors to visually and artistically
create variety and interest in your quintain stanzas. Think
of display options in a hypertext document in CSS.
d) Use hypertext links in a webpage to link your poem
thematically to persons, places, or things. Use links
to photographs or images related to you quintain stanza.
e) Create good titles for your poems! See my remarks
above in Tips #5.
11. Coming Soon ...
End Of Random Notes Section
As for my personal
Quintains Style of
writing,
here are my tendencies:
I frequently and freely use:
Rhymes, alliteration, assonance,
allusions, metaphors, symbols,
end stops, enjambment, signs,
indents, italics, boldface, fonts,
and other poetic devices.
Punctuation: — ; . ! : () [] & * " '
Indentation, line breaks,
and spaces for
typographical variety.
All of my poetry webpages after
2023 are CSS
formatted, and are easily
viewed on a
typical cellphone.
In order to fit a line length inside a cellphone screen, for enhanced readibility, I frequently use an iambic pentameter (5 stress, roughly decasyllabic line or even down to a one-word iambic line (1 stress.) Limitation of line length in a Quintain for cellphone readibility presents a unique compositional challenge. Also, most contemporary minimalist Tanka have very short line lengths.
All my poetry webpages have a drop down
Google Translate menu included.
With Tanka style Quintains, I try to use Pivot Points (lines 3 & 5) effectively for for impact, kicks, abruptness, contrasts, changes, etc.
My lines are often longer/fatter prose than other contemporry Tanka.
A few of my poems are in the minimalist Tanka style.
I find that using a photograph with a poem
is an effective
means to stimulate my thinking.
I mostly write first in a notebook with a pencil.
I try to learn by reading the best Quintain writers.
Clearly, I imitate some of the best already in print.
I connect to my various related webpages with Links.
I began studying and writing Quintains in 2021. I have read lots of Quintain and Tanka poetry. I am learning from those who have written noted Quintain and Tanka poems, and who have written usefully about this form of poetry. I plan to study, work, and make some progress in understanding Quintains, Pentastichs, and Tankas. I must be patient with myself, be steadfast, endure:
"Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance."
- James Baldwin
I intend to enjoy the creative playing with words and ideas.
I have considerable experience with both writing, reading, and studying Haiku since 1998. I read all of R.H.Blyth's essays and haiku books in the 1960's. Zen poetry has always appealed to me.
Tanka Poetry Research
English Language Quintain Poems
By Mike Garofalo
Research, Studies, Notes
Bibliography, Links, Docs
19 to 33 sounds/syllables/On
5 lines for traditional Japanese Tanka: 7-5-7-7-7
Modern Japanese Tanka poems:
5 lines, 31 sounds.
Naomi Wakan defines the Tanka line
length pattern as:
Long, short, Long, Long, Long
I have read Tanka in a:
Short, Long, Short, Long, Long;
and other variations.
Minimalist haiku might go down to 19 sounds.
Of course, if clear intent and meaning can be
conveyed with fewer words - Bravo!
The 7-5-7 pattern is the norm for Japanese Haiku.
I have also seen 5-7-5 patterns for haiku,
and many other variations.
Haiku are normally just 3 lines.
Most Tanka poems I have read are left untitled.
Occasionally, longer sequences of Tanka
on a
particular theme might be titled.
I have a propensity for using rhymes,
capitalization, and punctuation. Therefore,
I am a bit outside the norm for Tanka.
Readers are forewarned!
Normally, I read Tanka in English
that are unrhymed quintains, free verse,
no capitalization except for proper nouns, little
punctuation, and 19 sounds or less; sometimes
called "minimalist Tanka."
Syllable counting in the Japanese language for Tanka or Haiku is somewhat easier than in the English language. I believe, for another case, that the Italian language sounds favored the birth of rhymed sonnets.
Pivot Line, Volta, Twist, Turn, Shifting the Focus
In a Tanka Poem
“The pivot line means one thing as a finish to the first couple of lines and something else as a herald to the last two lines.” - Naomi Wakan, p. 36
The third line in a five-line Tanka poem.
Voltas or pivot lines are also used in Sonnets to shift the focus.
The Pivot Line might Shift or Pivot the Focus:
Pivot from the general to the more specific, or vice versa
Switch from the impersonal to the personal, or vice versa
Change from one time to another, e.g., past to future,
past to present, etc.
Pivot from abstract to concrete, or vice versa
Shift from a limited to a more extended view of a thought
Change from a word choice to a pun or homonym for contrast
Move from one thought to a contrasting or contradictory thought
Vault from one emotion to a related emotion
Pivot from one idea to an associated or related idea
Contrast a physical thing image to a related concept or idea
Switch from a clear image or idea to unrelated arbitrary ideas
Pivot from nonsense into more nonsense
Shift from obscurity to clarity, or vice versa
Change from free verse to rhymed verse, or vice versa
Move from many nouns to some verbs, or vice versa
Shift from the historical to the ahistorical, or vice versa
Detour from the everyday to the universal, or vice versa
Pivot from the spare direct immediate Haiku
mind to Tanka complexities
Change from one religious perspective to another
Move from technological to pastoral, pagan, earthy
Change from no punctuation to using punctuation
Shift from secular to Buddhist or Taoist thinking
Detour from the non-human to human emotions and feelings
Pivot from satisfied to dissatisfied or unhappy, or vice versa
Switch from one simile or metaphor to a related one
From facts to feelings and emotions, or vice versa
From emotions related to love or those of hate, or vice versa
From life to death, elegies, or vice versa
From the workday ordinary to celebrations, or vice versa
From Death day and ending poems to birth and beginnings
From a woman's interaction with a man, or vice versa
From minority views to majority views, or vice versa
"Tanka are not just stretched haiku." - Michael Dylan Welch
"Tanka are the perfect vehicle for capturing the swift, direct, pulse of emotion." - Carl Sesar
"No art form is more stubbornly national than poetry." - T. S. Eliot
Mike Garofalo's Internet
Web Publishing
Objectives, Aims, and Policies:
Provide open access to people worldwide.
People can read my poetry for free: 24/7.
Google translate drop-down menu included,
so you can read the machine AI translations
of all my poems into over 80 languages.
I frequently read translations of my
English poems into a Spanish version.
No advertising or pop-up ads on my webpages.
No cookies log-in steps.
No irrelevant graphics.
No AI generated ads!
No requests for your email before reading.
Not promoting chapbooks or
books of mine or from others to sell.
Since 2024, my webpages are in
CSS format and cellphone readable.
I use my Cloud Hands Blog for
poetry posts, posts on a variety
of topics, promoting others,
and selling books.
I research and study poetry at my home.
In 2026, I am carefully studying
the poetry of
John Ashbery,
Emily Dickinson, and the West Coast,
USA, Literary Scene, Quintains,
and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
My academic backgound includes:
philosophy, information science,
librarianship, education, and business.
Feedback or suggestions are welcome.
Editors and publishers who think
my poetry has some commercial
possibilities for themselves are
encouraged to contact me.
I've been employed as a webmaster,
grant writer, and web publisher
since 1998.
25 Steps and Beyond:
The Collected Works of Mike Garofalo
Texts Press Publications
Free Online Poetry and Studies
By Mike Garofalo
Vancouver, Washington
Text Press Email
Michael Peter Garofalo (1946-) grew up in East Los Angeles, raised well by June and Big Mike, was educated in Catholic Schools, lived with two other brothers, graduated (B.A., M.S.) from local universities, married Blanche Karen Eubanks, served in the US Air Force, worked in and managed many City and Los Angeles County Public Libraries, raised two children, socialized, traveled, and learned.
Retired as the Regional Administrator, East Region, Los Angeles County Public Library in 1998. We moved to a rural 5 acre property in Red Bluff, in the North Sacramento Valley, CA. Webmaster since 1999. Worked part-time for the Corning School District (Technology and Media Services Manager, Grant Writer, Webmaster, and District Librarian); and as a yoga, Taijiquan, and fitness club instructor until 2016. Traveled extensively in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
We both retired, and we moved to Vancouver, WA, in 2017. Currently in 2026: reading, writing, gardening, harmonica playing, home chores, yurt camping, exercise, traveling in the Northwest, web publishing, family events, poetry research, photography, Northwest research, Nature mysticism, pragmatism, aesthetics, walking, sports events, etc.
25 Steps and Beyond; Collected Works
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Send your comments to:
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Mirrors: Pentastichs, Tankas, Cinquains
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and Hwy 1
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas
Cuttings: Haiku, Senryu, Brief Poems
At the Edges of the Fertile West
Highway 99 and Interstate 5
Texts-PreSS Couve Publications
Free Online Poetry and Studies
Vancouver, Washington
Texts-PreSS Couve Publications Email
Bundled Up:
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tanka Poems
By Mike Garofalo
Bundled Up:
Quintains, Tankas, Pentastichs, and Onions
Quintain Poetry By Mike Garofalo
Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000
Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500
Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000
Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500
Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000
At the Edges of the West
A Docu-Poem
The earliest poems on this webpage
were posted online in 2021.
This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on February 23, 2026.