Haiku Harvest has long promoted the development of innovative haiku, including haiku noir, zips, shinku, and even American Cinquain.

In 2001, I developed the crystalline, a seventeen-syllable couplet form, for which euphony is a critical concern. Many poets now have essayed the crystalline form, creating some beautiful poetry.

In 2005, I developed the cinqku, a 17-syllable cinquain form of haiku, to be a closer analogue to haiku than the 22-syllable American Cinquain (Crapseian) can be. The cinqku maximizes the utility of the line break technique, much as American Cinquains and free verse do. The technical side is rather simple: a cinqku is a 5-line poem (cinquain) with a strict syllable count (2,3,4,6,2), which has no title and no metrical requirement. Cinqku may use haiku style free diction and syntax and may have a “turn” similar to kireji or an American Cinquain turn. A sequence of cinqku may be titled.

Five poets, collaborating on the Haiku Unchained list, have written a 35-cinqku sequence entitled, Broken Hearts, which was published by LYNX October 2005. See in this issue the cinqku, in Romanian and in English, by Cristian Mocanu; see also the cinqku, including cinqku noir, by Michael L. Evans. Another early success in this new form is John Dalieden's 5-cinqku sequence entitled, The Haunting: Echoes, which won the poetry "Editor's Choice" for the August/September ezine Scorched Earth Publications.

Following is a short sequence of my own (cinqku #s 5, 6 & 7) entitled Gone.
(See the photo-haiga of cinqku #6. Opens a new window.)

GONE

salt scent
ocean air—
cliff-side cabin
door swings slowly without
a sound

fire-rose
cloud fanned out
on twilight sky,
low moaning tide—your last
letter

far off
Chevrolet
speeding inland—
from exhaust and window
smoke trails

The first cinqku written, my # 1, included in Broken Hearts, is an exemplar of the form:

buried
five cold years
but never gone—
our bedroom's fragrant with
her scent

Following are my most recent cinqku, #s 30, 31 & 32.

midday
broiling sun—
horses and I,
the spring water trough, all
sweating

drenching
July storm
writhing steam lifts
through the downpour—falling,
rising

stifling
afternoon
tiger lilies
scent the air—Mother brings
iced tea

Haiku Harvest is interested in publishing fine cinqku. If you write in this form, you are invited to submit several of your best for our consideration.

— Denis M. Garrison, Editor