The Pantoum, which rhymes with "zoom" is a verse form composed of stanzas of four lines in which the second and fourth lines are repeated as the first and third lines in the following stanza. Often the first line becomes the last in the final stanza and the third line becomes the second. I began thinking of pantoums as circular but now I realize a pantoum is a spiral. You begin with a line, repeat lines on a set form and they somehow bring new meaning to the repeated lines. Then in the end you find you are back to the line you began with, but with a difference. You have come back home but home is never quite the same after traveling. If you want to try your hand at a pantoum start simple. Just look around the room or out your window and try creating a pantoum about what you see. Here is a very basic pantoum to give you an idea of what you can do. |
| evening falls kitty watches in the window waiting, waiting kitty watches ever patient waiting, waiting all alone ever patient in the window all alone evening falls |
Once you have written a few pantoums then you can play around with rhyme or meter though neither are necessary for a pantoum. What you will want to do is explore ways you can shift the meaning on some of the repetitions. Punctuation can really do a lot in changing the meaning of identical lines. You can make a pantoum really interesting this way. Sometimes you have to struggle to do this but other times the meaning will shift as if by magic. So be ready to enjoy these little surprises. Some people vary the form quite a bit and I have listed some pantoums like that in the links section on this site. ~ Anne |
