August 21 – Poet's Day

Posted on August 21, 2014

Poetry and poets are things we keep celebrating all year long—from China's version of Poet's Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, Poetry and the Creative Mind Day, and Bad Poetry Day to celebrating individual poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Frost, and Jack Prelutsky. 

So...why another holiday about poetry, celebrating poets? And why today, August 21?

Honestly, I tried to figure it out and failed. But a LOT of different websites state that August 21 is, in fact, Poet's Day...

and poetry is so great... 

I figured...Why not?

Trying for something I haven't covered before is tough. I'm not going to talk about limericks or haiku poems, because they have their own special days, but how about shape poems and cinquain poems? 

Shape Poems

With shape poems, think of a topic that lends itself to a simple shape. As you brainstorm words, play with writing them in such a way that you create an outline of the shape or a block of text that makes the shape. Check out these examples:

Cinquain Poems

American poet Adelaide Crapsey (who has an unfortunate last name, in my opinion) created a poetry form called cinquain. (Pronounced sin-cane.) These short poems have a haiku-like structure.

Cinquains are five lines long, with the following syllable pattern:

2 syllables

4 syllables

6 syllables

8 syllables

2 syllables

Cinquains may or may not include rhymes. Where haiku often describe nature, cinquains usually include an action or tell a (very short) story.

Here are some examples:

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen...

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

Cinquain by Cindy Barden

Baseball
Bat cracks against
The pitch, sending it out
Over the back fence, I did it!
Home run!

Here is a website that gives some pointers about writing cinquains. 

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the eruption of Lake Nyos 

Anniversary of the theft of the Mona Lisa

Anniversary of the Voyager 2 fly-by of Triton

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• August holidays 
• August birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in August

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• September holidays
• September birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in September