Pantoum

The pantoum poetic form came from France during the 1800’s, originally in the Malay verse. Later it was adapted into Anglo-American verse. The pantoum consists of “a quatrain with an abab rhyme” which includes multiple lines consisting of 8 to 12 syllables per line (Gotera 254). The first two lines describe an image in which the last two lines must clarify the images meaning. Those first two lines (a couplet) is called the pembayang. The last couplet is called the maksud. Both are a mirror of each other further described as an “image and statement, scene and comment” (Gotera 254). The original form includes internal rhyme and syllabic patterning which are direct features of the Malay language. Pantoums typically are used to express themes of love, lyricism, and other verities. The Anglo-American verse includes additional rhyme patterns. The second and fourth lines repeat in the next stanza’s second and fourth lines — in an abab bcbc cdcd pattern. This is to create a sort of circle with the stanzas having the same opening and closing lines. There is no set number of stanzas, though there must be a minimum of two in order to have this circle effect — having more then two will be more effective. Within the stanzas the first couplet reflects a different theme than the second making the first half about something completely different than the second half. As time has gone by the form has been used to reflect heavy political ideas. The pantoum called “Pantoun for Chinese women” by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim uses many of these ideas to push her political ideas. The poem has heavy themes of feminism and human rights. She wrote with more of a western influence, but kept some of the original Malay language. An example of this is the spelling of pantoum in the title, it is spelled with an “n” showing direct ties to Malay. The overall form was more western as she did not use the pembayang and maksud couplets from the original Malay. She did however use the “abab bcbc” pattern repeating the lines as the stanzas continued as well as had the same opening and closing line. I liked how the opening line “They say a child with two mouths is no good” kinda changed meaning from beginning to end (Gotera 261). In the beginning the line gave me a theme of hunger. That having the two mouths represented the demanding care children have on their parents, but in the end it changes to a theme of having a loud mouth or one having different opinions than the norm. This shows that the repetitiveness that comes with the form can be incredible powerful. It gives the writer opportunity for the lines to have multiple meanings making the overall themes of their poems deeper and stronger.

Gotera, Vince. The Pantoum’s Postcolonial Pedigree.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Eds. Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 2002.