PANTOUM ... INCANTATION, OBSESSION, DANCE

The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century as a short folk poem, typically made up of two rhyming couplets that were recited or sung. Pantoum is derived from 'pantun' - specifically from the pantun berkait, a series of interwoven quatrains. An English translation of such a pantun berkait appeared in William Marsden's A Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language in 1812. Victor Hugo published an unrhymed French version by Ernest Fouinet of this poem in the notes to Les Orientales (1829) and subsequent French poets began to make their own attempts at composing original "pantoums". Leconte de Lisle published five pantoums in his Poèmes tragiques (1884). Baudelaire's famous poem "Harmonie du soir" is usually cited as an example of the form, but it is irregular (the stanzas rhyme abba rather than the expected abab, and the last line, which is supposed to be the same as the first, is original).

As the pantoum spread, and Western writers altered and adapted the form, the importance of rhyming and brevity diminished. The modern pantoum is a poem of varying lengths, at least 4 stanzas, but often many more, composed of four-line stanzas (quatrains) in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.

The pantoum gained popularity among contemporary American writers such as Anne Waldman and Donald Justice after John Ashbery published the form in his 1956 book, Some Trees.

A good example of the pantoum is Carolyn Kizer’s "Parent's Pantoum," the first three stanzas of which are excerpted here:

Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them

One subtle, yet challenging, aspect of the pantoum is its subtle shifts in meaning that can occur as repeated phrases are revised with different punctuation and thereby given a new context. Ideally, the meaning of lines shifts when they are repeated although the words remain exactly the same: this can be done by shifting punctuation, punning, or simply recontextualizing.Consider Ashbery's poem "Pantoum," and how changing the punctuation in one line can radically alter its meaning and tone: "Why the court, trapped in a silver storm, is dying." which, when repeated, becomes, "Why, the court, trapped in a silver storm, is dying!"

An incantation is created by a pantoum's interlocking pattern of rhyme and repetition; as lines reverberate between stanzas, they fill the poem with echoes and a kind of obsessive intent. This intense repetition also slows the poem down, halting its advancement. As Mark Strand and Eavan Boland explained in The Making of a Poem, "the reader takes four steps forward, then two back," making the pantoum a "perfect form for the evocation of a past time."

Notes

• It is important to choose a theme for which repetition makes sense.

• It may be useful to use lines that make full sentences or complete statements on their own.

• It could also be interesting to subvert the repetitions by sometimes using sentences or statements that are ambiguous.

• Pantoums can rhyme, but they work quite well unrhymed.

Procedure

• Choose a theme in which the same thing is usually said more than once (e.g. an argument, a political discussion, a decision one may agonize over / be obsessive about: grades, money, food, cars, hair, collections, fears/phobias, love interests, sex ...)

• Freewrite a number of phrases or sentences that express that theme.

• Choose the one which would make a good opening and a good closing line, and fill in those spots on a pantoum chart.
• Then do the same with another one that will appear in line three and in line 2 in the last quatrain (four-lines). 
• Arrange the rest of the sentences/statements in pantoum form.
• Adjust as needed; get the form right, then you can go back and edit the phrases/sentences to be specific, colorful, or narrative as needed.

Form

line A
line B
line C
line D

line B (repeated)
line E
line D (repeated)
line F

line E (repeated)
line G
line F (repeated)
line H

… [add as many verses as the poem seems to call for]

line Y
line C (repeated)
line Z
line A (repeated)