#5 - HOW TO WRITE A PANTOUM
1.
The pantoum is a bit like the villanelle (see Episode 2) insofar
as there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It's made up of a series of 4-line
stanzas (quatrains). The second and fourth lines of each stanza (verse) are
repeated as the first and third lines of the next one. It's kinda cute if you
like that sort of thing.
2.
The pantoum can have as many stanzas as you want, so if you like long poems you can chatter on for ages, but I hate long poems so I've stuck to just 4 verses in the one I'm going to knock off here. The pattern outlined in (1) above continues through until the last stanza, which is different: in that one, the second line is the same as the third line of the first verse, and the last line is the same as the first line of the first verse, so the poem ends up back where it started, a situation that rather mirrors certain romantic situations one may or may not encounter.
3.
In the best kind of pantoum the meaning of the repeated lines
changes a little bit when they're repeated although the words remain exactly
the same. You can do this by changing the punctuation, or with some word play,
or just using a different context. But this tweaking of meanings isn’t a
rigorous rule, and you don't have to do it. Also, it can be quite tricky and a
lot of work, so I haven't bothered in my pantoum. I'm so lazy carefree.
4.
Strictly speaking and to be somewhat anal about it the
stanza in a pantoum should rhyme in the pattern ABAB but this is 2021 and we
are modern (and lazy) and we don’t rhyme unless someone is holding a gun
to our head. You could count syllables too, if you want to, but we don’t want
to. If it's good enough for this chap then it should be good enough for you (and me).
5.
Apparently the 4-stanza pantoum is quite common, probably because anything longer can be difficult to pull off, or just tedious, and that's the one I'm going to do, like I said. So anyway, if we call the 1st stanza lines ABCD, then stanza 2 is BEDF, stanza 3 is EGFH, and the last one (the 4th) is GCHA.
6.
I should probably mention at this point that there are a couple of variations available to all of this if you're interested. For example, you can switch the order of the 2nd and 4th lines of the last stanza, or you could skip using lines from the first stanza in the last one and use new lines instead, in which case you can ignore quite a lot of what I said in section 2, and I'm falling asleep writing this but will see it through to the end because I'm a professional (retired). I think these variations make what's called the "imperfect pantoum", like Celia was what you could call the "imperfect girlfriend". That's the thing with these traditional forms: there's always some modern someone fiddling with them, or "deconstructing" them. We yawn, and stick to the old ways, and we like a girlfriend who acts like a girlfriend. They're the best kind.
7.
So anyway, here's my first stanza, with the ABCD thing thrown in because this voluntary and largely-unread and unheralded venture is all about helping you, the imaginary reader/student/would-be poet/idler (delete as appropriate):
These long winter nights, chill and lonely A
I endure, sans electric blanket, sans lady friend B
It would be nice to warmly cuddle and share a joke or two C
My mind wanders, the wistful imaginings of a charming chap! D
8.
Now for the 2nd. The pattern will be this:
I endure, sans electric blanket, sans lady friend B
[new line] E
My mind wanders, the wistful imaginings of a charming chap! D
[new line] F
So here it is with my new lines put in:
I endure, sans electric blanket, sans lady friend B
These days I almost never think about Celia E
My mind wanders, the wistful imaginings of a charming chap! D
Celia ain't the only night-time heating appliance in the
world F
You can see how the pattern works. I hope so, anyway. I don’t think I could make it any clearer.
These days I almost never think about
Celia E
I've been looking
online for a new and better lady friend G
Celia ain't the only night-time
heating appliance in the world F
Though a rental might
be inhibitive as regards expense H
10.
It would be nice to warmly cuddle and share a joke or two C
Though a rental might be inhibitive as regards expense H
These long winter nights, chill and lonely A
And, as you can see, the poem ends up where it started, which is fitting, kind of, since I'm absolutely back where I started before Celia showed up.
11.
So that's the pantoum. Easy, wasn't it? It's a pity these
poetry forms don’t keep you warm on long and cold winter nights, but so it
goes. Here's the full thing without the distraction of the running alphabet:
These long winter nights, chill and lonely
I endure, sans electric blanket, sans lady friend
It would be nice to warmly cuddle and share a joke or two
My mind wanders, the wistful imaginings of a charming chap!
I endure, sans electric blanket, sans lady friend
These days I almost never think about Celia
My mind wanders, the wistful imaginings of a charming chap!
Celia ain't the only night-time heating appliance in the
world
These days I almost never think about Celia
I've been looking online for a new and better lady friend
Celia ain't the only night-time heating appliance in the
world
Though a rental might be inhibitive as regards expense
I've been looking online for a new and better lady friend
It would be nice to warmly cuddle and share a joke or two
Though a rental might be inhibitive as regards expense
These long winter nights, chill and lonely
12.
That ain’t bad for half an hour on a chilly October afternoon, even if I say so myself. I reckon if I tried really hard I could write a good one – and so can you! It needs a title, of course. At the moment my working title is "I'M THINKING OF BUYING AN ELECTRIC BLANKET". I'll almost certainly come up with something better, but I have bought an electric blanket, as it happens, a Silentnight™ "Comfort Control" which provides 3 levels of night-time bliss. "Bliss" is maybe the wrong word.
(This probably-never-to-be-used guide to the pantoum can be downloaded as a PDF here.)