84. Pantoums

Thursday is my poetry day: every week, a number of us from all over the country (plus Peru) meet in the afternoon to read some prompt poems, write for half an hour, and share. These past few weeks too, Thursday mornings at 9, I've been meeting with six others, led by Kathryn Petruccelli (who has various outlets: the blog Poet Roar, the Substack Ask the Poet, and recently a podcast, Melody or Witchcraft), in a generative workshop that she calls Small Observances, Big Ideas, or SOBI. 

Today, coincidentally, both groups ended up focusing on a poetic form, originally devised in 15th-century Malaya, known as the pantoum. The basic idea is that in each four-line stanza (after the first), you take the second and fourth lines of the preceding stanza, and they become the first and third lines of the next. The new second and fourth lines are fresh. And on and on you go, until the end, when the third and first lines of the very first stanza become the second and last lines of that final stanza. Clear as mud? 

Here's the poem we used as our guide in the SOBI group this morning, with the lines numbered so you can see the pattern:

Naturalization

Leah Silvieus

1     When I came to this country, I was reborn
2     with a pistol in my palm.
3     They called me a natural:
4     That bullseye, gorgeous!

2     With a pistol in my palm
5     the weight like a future son,
4     that bullseye gorgeous
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel.

5     The weight like a future son
7     dreaming blood on my hands—
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel,
8     bright like Christ.

7     Dreaming blood on my hands,
3     they called me. A natural,
8     right? Like Christ,
1     when I came to: This country I was, reborn.

Here's another one. As the poet River Dandelion says, the pantoum is a powerful vehicle for exploring intergenerational stories. 

Halcyon Kitchen

Kiandra Jimenez

Granma cautioned in a kitchen off Century and Hoover:
Never throw your hair away. Burn it. Till yellow
cornbread bakes and greens release pot liquor,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow.

Never throw your hair away, burn it till yellow
flames flick up and turn orange, blue. Overhead,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow,
wrestling. I reminisce, standing over her deathbed.

Rain picks up and turns ocher, blue. Unsaid
were simple things. Oxtail stew and yam
recipes I recollect, standing over her deathbed.
She smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,

when simple things — oxtail stew and yam
recipes — were not measured nor written. Cooking while
she smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip. She’d say, Chile,

ma recipes are not measured nor written. Cooking while
I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip, she’d say, Chile,
I may be dead and gone, but you mark my words. Sometimes

I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers,
I may be dead and gone, but you’ll mark my words. This time,
she is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers.

I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers.
Halcyon rain picks up, soaks me blue. Nothing unsaid.
She is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers,
restful. I’m remembering — standing over her deathbed.

It seems to be a good vehicle for grief as well, with its obsessive circling. That was the subject of one of the two I wrote today, which I'll share here. It adheres to the strict form, by which I mean no monkeying with wording (though monkeying with punctuation is perfectly okay). For my second assay, I took a lot of liberties with the form. But I'll leave that one for another day.

Grief

Fragile solace of memories.
You are a ghost now,
here, not here,
wavering shadow in bright sunlight.

You are a ghost now,
sheer sadness a blanket:
wavering shadow in bright sunlight,
salt sponge of tears—

sheer sadness a blanket
to be lifted, somehow—
salt sponge of tears
urging the heart to recall,

to be lifted somehow,
here, not here,
urging the heart to recall
(fragile solace of) memories.