How to Write Pantoum Poetry for English Class

The Pantoum is a relatively simple style of writing poetry that produces wonderfully marvelous results. Though it is simple in concept, the poems generated often have surprising depth. This is a great vehicle for poetry writing if you are new to the genre of poetry, or if you just want to experiement with something different.

Although the origins of the Pantoum are Malysian, it is now widely thought to be a French style of poetry, as it was made popular by the French author, Victor Hugo, in the mid nineteenth century. As you may know, Victor Hugo was the author of Les Miserab; he was a highly accomplished author, essayist, and poet.

In a pantoum, each stanza consists of four lines only. The original Malaysian form of the Pantoum followed a set rhyme scheme of ABAB, but this is not commonly done in modern pantoums. There are unlimited stanzas in a pantoum, but it may be wise to start with three or five stanzas until you get the hang of it. The trick to writing a Pantoum is knowing when to repeat a previously occuring line. The lines are repeated at very precise intervals, and the writer only generates two new lines of text per four line stanza.

Because this sounds terribly confusing at first, here is a very simplistic example. I will use rhyme here just so you can see how that works. Its really interesting the way the rhyme will continue. Begin your pantoum with four lines only; they may be related to one another or not, your final poem will vary in meaning depending upon this early choice

The cat walked on by (line 1)
He was yellow, and his ears poked back (line 2)
I called him, but he was shy (line 3)
would have thought I’d planned attack (line 4)

Here is where the pantoum gets really interesting. To write the next stanza, you borrow two lines from the previous stanza and create two lines of new, original text . In order to remain true to the form, you must borrow specfic lines. For stanza two, you will take lines 2 and 4. They will become your “new” lines 5 and 7. Lines 6 and 8 are new text.

He was yellow and his ears poked back (line 2, now line 5)
I wanted to take him home (new line 6)
would have thought I’d planned attack (line 4, now line 7)
No longer should he roam (new line 8)

Simple! You have generated a new stanza using material from the previous stanza. To continue the pantoum, you simply follow this same schematic of borrowing the lines above to write new lines below. The longer the pantoum, the more you
will see repetition, which is the device that makes this form so enjoyable. You will always use the second and fourth line of the immediately preceeding stanza to serve as the first and third line of your current stanza.

Like so

1
2
3
4

2 (5)
6
4 (7)
8

6 (9)
10
8 (11)
12

and et cetera.

You close the pantoum by placing lines three and line one into your final stanza in lieu of any newly created text. So the final stanza for the scheme above would be:

10
3
9
12

The pantoum always begins and ends with the same line.

You can find many examples of pantoums by searching the web, but it is a lot more fun to write your own.