William Soutar Cinquainista (Cinquain Poet)

Poetry has been likened to a sieve that retains the essentials of life and discards the chaff, leaving a concentrate distilled upon the page in verse or ..(a perfect description of the office American Cinquain form ,of which Adelaide Crapsey & her contemporary Wiliam Soutar were the acknowleged original early 20th century exponents).

The American cinquain is perhaps the best example of such a concentrate being the most succinct and compact poetic form devised and created especially for the English language, arising, so to speak, from its own literary roots. William (similarly to Adelaide beridden due ilness) consoled himself with poetry (and later as a diary writer), whilst in the care of his devoted parents.

His diaries abound in expressions of gratitude to both his parents for their encouragement of his literary work. In his diary just before his early death at the age of forty-five, he hoped to be remembered as a poet, if for no other reason than that his folks may not be forgotten, or the fact that they had done so much for him, and had received so little in return. From his bed William could view his parent's garden and the hill in the distance beyond. His American cinquains reveal that little inside or out escaped his notice. Much of William's cinquains have a down-to-earth flavour compared to the some of the more classical-orientated cinquains of Adelaide ,illustrating their differing influences and backgrounds. Notwithstanding, each in their better cinquains reflect the uniqueness of the American Cinquain as image poetry of the highest quality exampled by Adelaide's November Night and William's The Bridge. None of William's cinquains were published in his life time. A collection of what he termed his best English lyrics he gathered together into a volume entitled 'The Expectant Silence' and were published in the year following his death. He had commenced to write his cinquains in the seven years up to 1933 but the majority were penned in the latter part of his writing career to 1939.

Soutar also had a couplet form in common with Adelaide ie the 'doublet' form similar to the Adelaide's epigram doublet On Seeing Weather-beaten Trees. However William did not use the integral title used by Adelaide (created as an image 'hiku' style English languge form to rival the haiku, but thankfully William has left us with many more than the two doublets that we have of Adelaide.