The Pantoum – A Rhyming, Repeating Poetic Form
How to Write and Recognize Pantoum Poems
Nov 15, 2009
The pantoum is a form of poetry that, not unlike the villanelle, utilizes both rhyme and repetition to explore a subject in cyclical layers. It originated in France and became popular in Europe and North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The pantoum has been used by such poets as John Ashbery, Donald Justice, and Charles Beaudelaire.
The Structure of a Pantoum
The pantoum is constructed as a series of quatrains. Unlike other verse forms such as the sonnet, there is no minimum or maximum length of this form - that is entirely up the writer. The quatrains typically rhyme A B A B all the way through the poem, and they are interconnected by repeating lines from the stanza before.
Repeated lines are the key feature of the pantoum; they are what gives the form that reminiscent or dreamlike quality that makes it so haunting and attractive. The pattern is simple: the second and fourth lines of the first quatrain become the first and third lines of the second quatrain, and so on throughout the poem. The final quatrain, however, is different; it repeats the second and fourth lines of the penultimate stanza in its first and third lines as before, but its second and final line are taken from the third and first lines of the very first stanza. Ending with the first line of the poem gives the form a cyclical, ghost-like quality.
Play With Syntax and Meaning
The ideal pantoum is one that does interesting or unexpected things with its repeated lines. This can be achieved by changing the punctuation within or at the end of the line as it moves from one stanza to the next, by using words with more than one direct meaning, or by supplying new meaning for words by recontextualizing them in the new stanza.
For an example: Donald Justice's "Pantoum of the Great Depression." Many of his repeated lines are changed just slightly from one use to the next, maintaining an even tone and the reader's interest throughout. Consider these two stanzas from the poem:
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world. (lines 17-24)
Of particular interest here is the variation of the line "No audience would ever know our story" to "What audience would ever know our story?" The former line is offers the phrase as a statement, a fact that no one would know the story because "we kept quiet about it." But the latter line poses it as a question, almost as a plea for some recognition, to the "actual world" that is shining out of reach "beyond our windows."
This is an excellent example of how the most interesting thing you can do with a poetic form is to break in meaningful ways - but this is best done after mastering the true form first!
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