Pantoums with Mark Strand
pantoum
Correspondence with Mark Strand and Judy and Mike Spock, and my Pantoum (e-mails in reverse chronological order)
pan·toum | \ pan‧ˈtüm\
plural -s
Definition of pantoum:
A series of quatrains rhyming abab in which the second rhyme of a quatrain recurs as the first in the succeeding quatrain, each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme (as bcbc, cdcd), and the initial rhyme of the series recurs as the second rhyme of the closing quatrain (xaxa)
Or read this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantoum
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Strand
To: Joan D. Levin
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: Lovely evening!
Dear Joan, that pantoum fragment was terrific. Yours actually rhymes,
making the job more difficult. I've been either on the road or teaching.
I can't wait for this to be over--this teaching. Although I do love
teaching Kafka. Nice evening the other daY, the Moroccan food, etc.
Best, Mark
At 04:45 PM 3/29/00 -0600, you wrote:
Judy, Mike, Mark -- It was good to see you all last night! This
morning in my Basic Program class (which I hope will improve my mind
although this hasn't happened yet) our instructor passed around "Eating
Poetry." We had a lively discussion which wandered into the outfield
with talk (because one classmate is a librarian) about public
perceptions of librarians versus books, reading & poetry. I always liked
Eating Poetry and thank you Mark for writing it!
It occurred to me then that I hadn't explained pantoums very well (at least as I understand them, which may have no resemblance to what they really are) -- but
here's my concept about how they go and what came to mind during class this morning:
Drinking Moroccan Wine -- 3/28/00
Please pass that good red wine;
We're dining au Moroc,
And suppertime is fine,
With friends from Antioch.
We're dining au Moroc,
With olives, bread and chatter.
With friends from Antioch,
The goblets hardly matter.
With olives, bread and chatter,
We sip the ruby red.
The goblets hardly matter?
The Prophet shakes his head!
We sip the ruby red,
The river straight to Hell?
The Prophet shakes his head;
We say: This drink is swell!
The river straight to Hell?
Please pass that good red wine!
We say: This drink is swell --
And suppertime is fine!
That's all, Folks! Joan
******
Here is another Pantoum! I wrote it for Andrea Monsees around 1996 - we had been talking about Pantoums and she gave me a poetry encyclopedia for Hanukkah in which "Pantoum" was one of the entries.
******
Here is another Pantoum! I wrote it for Andrea Monsees around 1996 - we had been talking about Pantoums and she gave me a poetry encyclopedia for Hanukkah in which "Pantoum" was one of the entries.
