Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) was a Brooklyn-born poet and the inventor of the cinquain form. Because of her untimely death at age thirty-six, much of her work was published posthumously. The topic of death and dying in her work was influenced by her knowledge of a terminal tuberculosis of the brain lining. Crapsey produced a study of English metrics, praised for its clarity, and edited a single collection of sixty-three poems, Verse. Future collections were edited by a colleague of hers at Smith College.

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.


Read on . . .

“All Saints All Souls,” a poem by Ursula K. Le Guin