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Suggested time: 1–2 hours
Anaphora is the literary technique of repeating words, and it works well in both writing and speaking. If you think of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, you know how powerful it can be to repeat words with a strong message and beat.
Pantoums and villanelles are poems that use anaphora, repeating an entire line as a refrain throughout the poem. The pantoum, unlike the villanelle, does not need a rhyming scheme (unless you want one), and its length can vary.
Before you compose your own pantoum, read the following examples out loud. Choose one to use as a model for your own poem. Try to make your poem dance!
- Lyrics to “I Am Going to Like It Here,” by Oscar Hammerstein II
- “Parent’s Pantoum,” by Carolyn Kizer
- “Miss Charlotte Brown, Librarian, Goes Mad,” by Felix Jung. This poem is animated and shows clearly how lines are repeated.
Pantoums have four-line stanzas (quatrains) with repeated lines. There is no set number of lines to a pantoum. The following is the general structure for a pantoum:
line 1
line 2
line 3
line 4
line 5 – refrain, same as line 2
line 6
line 7 – refrain, same as line 4
line 8
line 9 – refrain, same as line 6
line 10
line 11 – refrain, same as line 8
line 12