Bouchercon Eve: I’m here! In the bar!

Or did about five hours ago.

It rained the whole damn way. Four and a half hours driving through truck mist.  I think I saw the arch through the rain for the split second before I had one of my patented oh crap, my exit moments and cut two people off so I wouldn’t miss the bridge into the city.

As predicted, I gave myself a circular tour of St. Louis . . . twice . . . to find the entrance to the hotel.

After that, things got better.

The Renaissance Grand is a gorgeous hotel that doubles as a labyrinth, so I flagged a few people down to ask where to register for the conference, and then asked another man if he knew how to get back to the lobby or the bar.  He knew where the bar was and led the way.  I sat down and began this post, as it turns out that floor has free Wifi—score!

I had no sooner flamingoed, when my guide was back and said, “I’ve been abandoned, would you mind if I pretended I know you?”

I didn’t and we introduced ourselves. His name seemed awfully familiar, but before I could figure it out, he asked me, “Author, writer, agent, or editor?”

“Librarian and wannabe,” I said.

“Great!  Which library?”

I told him and he stared at me.  “That’s my library!”

What are the odds?

Matt Clemens co-wrote most of the CSI tie-ins, as well as some stand alones, with or without Max Allan Collins.  He’s also a great guy with great stories—we appear to have compatible senses of humor and cynicism, God help us.

We talked for a while and he introduced me to a couple of people (including Val McDermid, who is stunning, gracious, and has a beautiful accent, sorry, gushing) and we took the discussion of which panels we wanted to attend to a great Italian place about three blocks farther than I should have walked in the shoes I was wearing.  But it was worth it—he’s a font of information and was very kind to this newbie.

So I found someone to hang with for the evening and now I’m in a corner of an increasingly loud and happy bar writing this up before I go upstairs and write a bit where I can’t get Wifi.

And there’s a Starbucks around the corner—or so I just heard—so that’s breakfast sorted.

Whew!

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Poetry Wednesday: Crapsey Cinquain Contest

I’m currently on the road—or possibly circling downtown St. Louis looking for my hotel—so I’m not prepared to offer the usual Poetry Wednesday.

This time, I want you to do it for me.

Janie’s homework assignment this week was to write a cinquain poem about her neighborhood or town.

A cinquain is a five-line poem. The term used to mean all five-line poems, but there are always those who aren’t comfortable without rules and guidelines, so now there are tanka* and tetractys** and cinqku*** and lanternes,^  and all sorts of other forms that drive my spell-check nuts.

And then there’s the Crapsey cinquain, the name of which is not a description or statement of value—necessarily—but only indicates that Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) is considered by many to be the inventor of the modern form, which is based on syllables per line—two, four, six, eight, two—with a fixed number of stressed syllables as well.^^

Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

.

As it
Were tissue of silver
I’ll wear, O fate, thy grey
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.

 As with all things literary, a vareity of poets messed with the basic form and came up with reverse cinquains^^^ and butterfly cinquains,^^^^ mirrored,⁺ garland,⁺⁺ crown,⁺⁺⁺ etc., all with different rules and further opportunities to be snobby about one’s preferred métier.

Most schools use the didactic form, which is all about word count and parts of speech.  Janie’s assignment asked for a one, two, three, four, one, noun-adjective form:

Town
Quiet, cool
Clean, big, pretty
Fresh, friendly, nice, bright
Town

Simple,¹ right?  So let’s try it here.

Leave a cinquain of any form except didactic—because I can be snobby, too—in the comments.  The subject is up to you.

Anyone who gives it a try will be entered into a drawing for something appropriately poetic, which I realize is vague, but what do you have to lose? 

Anyone who attempts the garland or crown form will be entered twice in the drawing, because whew.

You have until next Wednesday.

_____

* a five-line form of unrhymed Japanese poetry, totalling 31 precisely stressed stanzas structured in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern.

** a five-line poem of 20 syllables with a title, arranged in the following order: 1,2,3,4,10, with each line standing as a phrase on its own.

*** five lines with a total of 17 syllables.

^ an untitled five line verse with a syllabic pattern of one, two, three, four, one.

^^She also seems to have suffered from either depression or deep-seated anger—many of her cinquains appear to be about crying or death.  I’m just sayin’.

^^^ one 5-line stanza in a syllabic pattern of two, eight, six, four, two.

^^^^ two 5-line stanzas consisting of a cinquain followed by a reverse cinquain.

 ⁺a nine-line syllabic form with the pattern two, four, six, eight, two, eight, six, four, two.

⁺⁺a series of five cinquains functioning to construct one larger poem.

⁺⁺⁺ a series of six cinquains in which the last is formed of lines from the preceding five, typically line one from stanza one, line two from stanza two, and so on.

¹ While showing signs of great poetic genius, of course.