The Pantoum: Nellie Wong's "Grandmother's Song"

Building Patterns of Memory With Poetic Form

Apr 1, 2009 Kristie Camacho

In The Making of a Poem, Mark Strand and Eavan Boland describe the pantoum as "the perfect form for the evocation of a past time."

The pantoum is a strict form of poetry that differs from most other poems of strict form in that it does not have a specified number of lines (like those of the nineteen line villanelle, or the thirty-six line sestina). What it is comprised of are four line stanzas with an abab rhyme scheme, and a pattern of line placement where the second and fourth lines of each quatrain become the first and third lines of the next quatrain.

With this structure, the pantoum does not evoke the singular feeling of circular thought we see in the villanelle and sestina. Instead, the pantoum creates a feeling remembrance and contemplation, blending the circular pattern of thought and narrative with a slow movement forward.

An Example of a Pantoum: “Grandmother’s Song”

Nellie Wong’s “Grandmothers’s Song” is a pantoum exploring moments past and a declaration of how the individual struggles to move forward. Her verse starts with “Grandmother’s sing their song / Blinded by the sun’s rays / Grandchildren for whom they long / For pomelo-golden days” (50). Wong’s introductory lines bring forth images of older women, looking towards the future, but not able to visualize it. They are women thinking on their families, and longing for a time of family connections.

Visions of Longing and Remembrance

Wong’s next quatrain reinforces the vision of longing and remembrance, while bringing forth a new element of the grandmother’s youth, and a comparison between the young and the aged as she writes “Blinded by the sun’s rays / Gold bracelets, opal rings / For pomelo-golden days / Tiny fingers, ancient things.”

Both quatrains exhibit the pantoum’s four-line structure, as well as its prescribed abab rhyme scheme. The reader observes how the lines have begun to move forward, as lines that were previously introduced are echoed in the second quatrain, while two new lines are brought into the structure. This pattern emphasizes the expression of things remembered, and the introduction of new thoughts.

The structure of the pantoum becomes more evident, and one begins to see how each sentence builds upon the previous, forming a pattern of complement, and then replacement. In this manner, the form of the pantoum begins to exhibit what Boland and Strand describe as the “strange twists of antinarrative time.”

Themes of Assimilation and Identity

Wong’s verse continues as each quatrain reflects upon moments past while gradually moving forward. Gradually unfolding her theme of identity and assimilation, Wong introduces and then repeats the line “A foreign tongue is learned at three.” This image describes how the pattern of the grandmother’s lives has been interrupted by an assimilation of culture. The pantoum ends with the line “Grandmother’s sing their song,” reinforcing the revelation of memories and a circular pattern of remembrance.

Source

The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. Edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000).

The copyright of the article The Pantoum: Nellie Wong's "Grandmother's Song" in Poetry is owned by Kristie Camacho. Permission to republish The Pantoum: Nellie Wong's "Grandmother's Song" in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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