author
Adelaide Crapsey
1878–1914
Best remembered for creating the five-line cinquain, she wrote brief, carefully shaped poems that still feel fresh and modern. Much of her most admired work appeared after her early death, giving her small body of poetry an unusual intensity.
1 Audiobook
Verse
by Adelaide Crapsey
About the author
Born in Brooklyn in 1878 and raised in Rochester, New York, Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet whose life was brief but remarkably influential. She studied at Vassar College and became known for her close attention to rhythm, form, and compression in poetry.
Crapsey is most often associated with the cinquain, a five-line verse form she developed and helped bring into American poetry. Her poems are admired for saying a great deal with very little, often combining delicacy, restraint, and emotional force.
She died in Rochester in 1914 at just 36 years old. Because much of her mature work was published after her death, readers came to discover her voice almost all at once, and her reputation has endured through those concise, memorable poems.