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Pantoums



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Home 		           The pantoum is a Malay form. It is written in quatrains and repeats whole lines in an interlocking pattern. The second and fouth lines of any stanza become the first and third lines of the stanza that follows. In the pantoum's last stanza, the first and third lines of the opening are finally repeated as the fourth and second lines. The order of those lines can be reversed, but an ideal pantoum will end with the poem's opening line - creating a kind of circle.

         Pattern for repeating lines (letters stand for whole lines, not rhymes) in a pantoum:
    First Stanza
      Line 1 = A
      Line 2 = B
      Line 3 = C
      Line 4 = D
    Second Stanza
      Line 1 = B
      Line 2 = E
      Line 3 = D
      Line 4 = F
    Third Stanza
      Line 1 = E
      Line 2 = C
      Line 3 = F
      Line 4 = A
         Although the example above is only three stanzas, pantoums can expand, accordion-like, into infinitely long poems. Most are fairly short, however, since they tax the poet's ingenuity and the reader's patience. The shortest pantoum would consist of two stanzas, since something must repeat and circle around. A pantoum can rhyme, but doesn't have to. If it does rhyme, the obvious scheme is the interweaving abab or abab, bcbc, etc..

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Spring Term 2005. All rights reserved.
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