Pantoum: The Form of Emphasis
The Pantoum, as described by Muhammad Haji Salleh, has four lines per block, each line containing eight to twelve lines. The “the first two lines prepare us in image, sound and suggestion for the meaning proper in the last two” (Gotera 254). An interesting aspect of this form is how it consistently reuses lines in a specific order, where “the second and fourth lines of any stanza return as the first and third of the subsequent stanza” (Gotera 255). One would think that reusing lines in this manner would be redundant or unnecessary. The way in which the lines repeat seems to give the opposite impression. The pantoum would lose a lot of its power if this emphasis on certain lines was lost. An excerpt from “Monologue d’Outre Tomb,” by an anonymous author, is a great example of how the pantoum needs this repetitive emphasis to really breathe life into it.
Within this excerpt, the first stanza sets the scene with visual imagery, “Morn and noon and night Here I lie in the ground;” (“Monologue d’Outre Tomb” 256). These lines return in the following stanza, emphasizing this image within the poem.
“Here I lie in the ground; The worms glide out and in” (“Monologue d’Outre Tomb” 256).
In addition to presenting the perspective of one who has died, the line also describes the worms wriggling through the area this person occupies. This reappearance of “Here I lie in the ground;” (“Monologue d’Outre Tomb” 256) is key to the idea that this person is speaking from the grave.
To add to this idea of poetry from the grave, the writer states in the first stanza, “No faintest glimmer of light, No lightest whisper of sound” (“Monologue d’Outre Tomb” 256). These are the third and fourth lines in the first stanza, adding to the visual of lying in the ground by stating that it is completely dark, but also giving us an auditory clue that the writer is in a place that is also dead silent.
“No lightest whisper of sound, After a lifelong din” (“Monologue d’Outre Tomb” 256).
At this point, it is very clear that the author is dead, and is describing their experience in their resting place. Most would say that the poem has beaten a dead horse, claiming again and again the same basic message. The only difference with his amount of repetition and emphasis is that we have a very complex image of this scene. It may be a basic scene, but if the author did not utilize this form’s usage of old lines, we would a simple image, as opposed to the in-depth, very detailed setting that we get from just the first two stanzas. Repetition’s ability to emphasize is one of the most powerful features of the pantoum.
“Monologue d’Outre Tomb.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, p. 256.
Vince Gotera. “The Pantoum’s Postcolonial Pedigree.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 254–261.
