Week 2, Day 6: Poetry. Pantoum.

Ah yes, the pantoum. A friend of mine typed recently, "If any poem form has fans clamoring for more, it's pantoums." I have no idea whether she was being serious or facetious because it came to me via a Google Talk conversation and also I know nothing about pantoums or any other kind of poem. But I want to believe her.

A pantoum is:

A series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. The first line of the series recurs as the last line of the closing quatrain, and third line of the poem recurs as the second line of the closing quatrain, rhyming ZAZA.

The design is simple:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8

Continue with as many stanzas as you wish, but the ending stanza then repeats the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza (as its first and third lines), and also repeats the third line of the first stanza, as its second line, and the first line of the first stanza as its fourth. So the first line of the poem is also the last.

Last stanza:

Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza

And here is my pantoum:



"Winter feelings"
To listen to The Rachel's during winter, I am brought to heaven
And I am reminded of the truest feelings of my humanity.
I am standing outside, on a street alone, in a race
to catch snowflakes and gain understanding.

And I am reminded of the truest feelings of my humanity
When I feel my lungs fill with an inhalation of smoke, and I try
to catch snowflakes and gain understanding.
Cigarettes and winter and Rachel's are sometimes enough to make me cry.

When I feel my lungs fill with an inhalation of smoke, and I try
to focus on the sensation of my body dying slowly, I remember that
Cigarettes and winter and Rachel's are sometimes enough to make me cry.
It is not as easy to keep holding onto that thought as it is

to focus on the sensation of my body dying slowly; I remember that
I am standing outside, on a street alone, in a race.
It is not as easy to keep holding onto that thought as it is
to listen to The Rachel's during winter; I am brought to heaven.