Malay Pantoum Found in America

A working writer lives for mail. Snail mail, email, faxed documents bearing all those little curls and curl-less symbols that slither off the page to inform or entertain, accept or reject. Email is my favorite. It comes from all over the world, with a click of the mouse, and often leads me off on some new path I never thought of travelling. Last week was no exception.

Several letters from editors, announcements from zines asking for mention in our column. Two nice notes from readers. A few x-rated notices promising what cannot be truly delivered online.

And a pantoum.

This particular pantoum came to me from Anne Johnson, suite101.com editor of Women and Creativity. The Visit describes emotions that come into play between an old woman who believes a younger female visitor to be a sister. Ms. Johnson also has another pantoum within her poetry chapbook collection. Train Dreams Weaving offers a more lyrical treatment, and is but another of the fine poems Ms. Johnson features at her site, Womenfolk.

Now I would love to be able to say that when Ms. Johnson wrote, "I have been experimenting with pantoums," I immediately called forth a mental image of the exact requirements of this form. I couldn't.

I had heard the term because I had read Pulitzer prize winner Carolyn Kizer's poem, Parent's Pantoum years ago. At that time, I had to find the word in a dictionary. I got a general idea of it, ran the definition through my brain, and let it slide right out somewhere to the left of my earring.

Aside from the fact that Ms. Johnson had emailed me a poem that stopped my very busy day in a very nice way, it occurred to me that people interested in poetry might like to know something about pantoums.

I suppose many readers at this point are muttering a well-deserved question. Why doesn't this maddening woman just tell us exactly what a pantoum is?

The fastball definition can be found in most any respectable unabridged dictionary. A pantoum is a poem of Malay origin. Written in quatrains, or four line segments, the second and fourth lines of each quatrain recur as the first and third line of the next. The second and fourth lines of the final quatrain repeat the first and third of the first. A caveat--there are variations on this pattern.

As a practicing poet, I must say that I have the utmost respect for forms such as the pantoum, the villanelle, the sestina, the more familiar sonnet. I am, however, form-challenged. The set criteria boggle my mind.

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