A pantoum for Hliza

Hliza said the other day that she thought the nearest thing in Malay to a sonnet might be a 'pantun'.  I remembered there was a form called a pantoum, and that it came from Malay originally, so I said I'd try to write her one.

I'd noticed it in the poet's manual, then it came up in Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty, a book in which I found much to enjoy, where the poem from which the novel takes its title is in the form of a pantoum, supposedly written by one of the characters but in reality written by Smith's husband, Nick Laird.

'It's Malay originally.'
'Malay!'
'It travelled.  Victor Hugo did use it, but it's Malay originally. It's basically interlinked quatrains, usually rhyming a-b-a-b, and the second and fourth lines of each stanza go on to be the first and third ... lines of the next stanza.
(Zadie Smith, On Beauty)

I checked again with the Poet's Manual, which said it was a German poet, Adelbert von Chamisso, who first introduced the form to Europe, the 19th century French poets, including Hugo and Baudelaire in their enthusiasm for Orientalism  took it up, and then Austin Dobson in English.

It turns out to be considerably more difficult than a sonnet.  The pattern is as Smith outlines above, quatrains - four-line verses - rhyming a-b-a-b, but then you repeat the second and fourth 'b' lines in the next verse, so they become the 'a' lines, so it's a chain-rhyming poem.  You can have as many quatrains as you like, the lines can be as long as you like, but at the end, you have to cast off the chain neatly by re-using the only unrepeated lines - the first and third ones of the first verse - in reverse.

Sounds horribly complicated as such things always do when you try to spell them out, but it's made considerably easier, especially with the wonders of word-processing, by laying out a template on the page, and copy-and-pasting the repeating lines in the appropriate places, then sliding things about till you get a result you're happy with.  The real difficulty, as with any form with a lot of repeating in it, is stopping the repetitions sounding annoying and/or nonsensical in relation to the lines on either side of them.  This page at an old University of Iowa 'Craft of Poetry' site has some helpful suggestions, such as running sentences over from one line to the next (enjambment) to avoid the repeats clunking too much.  The problem with that is you then have be able to cut-and-shut parts of the different sentences compatibly together.  It also suggests that you don't have to be too fussy about repeating the lines exactly, you can change them a bit, which I have, or about getting your rhymes too perfect, which I haven't.

I've absolutely no idea whether this kind of European pantoum bears any resemblance to its Malay origins.

Hliza, who lives in Malaysia, has been a blogging buddy for ages now, sometimes we don't visit each other's blogs for a long time, but then we do again. The name of hers, 'A Woman, a Mom, a Lover' at first seemed to me a bit over the top, but it turns out it's a take on a classic Malaysian film melodrama about a fallen woman, so that's Hliza having a chuckle.  In fact she's very far from a fallen woman, but a rock-steady one. Our lives, situations, cultures, characters even, couldn't really be much more different, and that's the beauty of it.  But I think we do share a need and desire to look at and note and photograph the things around us, to see the beauty in the ordinary and to try to make it extraordinary, and also to stay open and interested in people and worlds which are different from our own.  I remain very grateful to blogging for giving me opportunities to share a little of other people's lives like this.

In the scene in the Zadie Smith novel above, it says of the rather reserved, not very poetically inclined character who has been shown the pantoum:

Jack was now faced with a task he dreaded, saying something after reading a poem.  Saying something to the poet.

I do know how he feels.


Pantoum, for Hliza

There is no reason actually for you to read, except
I see things. Like how, between the breakfast dark and hungry light
the girl lies quiet, dropping stones like prayer beads into sets,
and the boy who watches, worries, saves and writes.

I see things: how, between the dark and light
he folds the notes up, gives them back and nearly breaks your heart,
the boy who watches, worries, saves and writes,
floating in watery blue, is in a world apart.

He folds the years up, gives them back and nearly breaks your heart,
who carried you as children strongly in his arms,
floating in watery blue, he's in a world apart,
she looks at him with love, and prays to keep him safe from harm.

He carried all his children strongly in his arms,
but asked to wear a suit the Mister says he'd rather not,
She looks at him with love, and thinks about his charms,
he wears his leaf-green silks instead, and my, does he look hot!

Asked to wear a suit the Mister says he'd rather not,
the mother frowns at fruit to start the day,
in gorgeous leaf-green silks he looks so hot...
red chilli spice, now that's the better way.

The mother frowns at fruit to start the day,
to seek time to herself she finds a place,
 - red chilli spice is much the better way -
arcades of coloured space give onto space.

To seek time to herself she finds a place
where patterns, words and pictures hang in rainbows,
arcades of coloured space give onto space
and joyous, loving beauty always flows.

Where patterns, words and pictures hang in rainbows
the girl lies quiet, dropping stones like prayer beads into sets,
and loving, joyous beauty always flows.

There is no reason actually for you to read.  Except...