Forms

The Pantoum

pan-TOOM

Citation Formats

General Reference

Literature Atlas. "The Pantoum." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/forms/pantoum.

APA Style

Literature Atlas. (n.d.). The Pantoum. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/forms/pantoum

BibTeX

@misc{literatureatlas-the-pantoum,
  author = {Literature Atlas},
  title = {The Pantoum},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/forms/pantoum},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

A poetic form built from interlocking quatrains: the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated verbatim as the first and third lines of the next, so the whole poem advances by reusing its own lines, and the closing stanza typically returns the opening line as its last. Because the surrounding lines change, a repeated line's sense can shift on each return through shifted punctuation, punning or recontextualizing rather than a change of wording. The form descends from the Malay pantun berkait, a chain of interwoven quatrains, which the French poet and translator Ernest Fouinet rendered into French for Victor Hugo's 1829 collection Les Orientales, after which French poets including Leconte de Lisle adopted it as a fixed form.

Facts

Place of Origin

Adapted from the Malay pantun berkait, a chain of interwoven quatrains, rendered into French by Ernest Fouinet for Victor Hugo's 1829 collection Les Orientales. 1

Structure

Built from interlocking quatrains: the second and fourth lines of each stanza repeat verbatim as the first and third lines of the next, so the poem advances by reusing its own lines; the closing stanza typically returns the opening line as its last. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

The Villanelle

Both forms build a whole poem from strict verbatim repetition of earlier lines, though the pantoum repeats by shifting quatrain and the villanelle by refrain.

Source Pantoum (Wikipedia)