[Note: in the Malayan, the pantun follows the same rhyme and line patterns as the Pantoum. But pantun is traditionally improvised; the first two lines of each quatrain present an image or an allusion; the second two lines of each quatrain convey the theme and meaning, and may not have an obvious connection with the first two lines.] In a traditional Pantoum:

• The lines are grouped into quatrains (4-line stanzas).

• The final line of the Pantoum must be the same as its first line.

• A Pantoum has any number of quatrains.

• Lines may be of any length.

• The Pantoum has a rhyme scheme of abab in each quatrain. Thus, the lines rhyme alternately.

• The Pantoum says everything twice:

1. For all quatrains except the first, the first line of the current quatrain repeats the second line in the preceeding quatrain; and the third line of the current quatrain repeats the fourth line of the preceeding quatrain.

2. In addition, for the final quatrain, its second line repeats the (so-far unrepeated) third line in the first quatrain; and its last line repeats the (so- far unrepeated) first line of the first quatrain.

• Thus the pattern of line-repetition is as follows, where the lines of the first quatrain are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4":

1 2 3 4 - Lines in first quatrain. 2 5 4 6 - Lines in second quatrain. 5 7 6 8 - Lines in third quatrain. 7 9 8 10 - Lines in fourth quatrain. 9 3 10 1 - Lines in fifth and final quatrain.

In this example, we have 5 quatrains. You could have more. You could have fewer. Here’s a portion of a pantoum Stanza #1 A man went searching for his soul He looked within and without He asked wise men and fools For clues of his identity Stanza #2 He looked within and without He traveled mountains and valleys For clues of his identity He felt part of himself was missing Stanza #3 He traveled mountains and valleys He wandered here and there He felt part of himself was missing Until he saw her standing afar

Here are the first two stanzas of an anonymous pantoum: Morn and noon and night, Here I lie in the ground; No faintest glimmer of light, No lightest whisper of sound.

Here I lie in the ground; The worms glide out and in; No lightest whisper of sound, After a lifelong din. Villanelle is a French word, derived from the original word in Italian, villanella. Villanella is believed derived from the Latin villano (farmhand), which is in turn derived from the Latin villa (farm).

Historically, the Italian villanella was a rustic dance, or the music for such a dance. Sometimes it was a rustic Italian part song (round song) that was popular in the sixteenth century.

In a traditional Villanelle:

• The lines are grouped into five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Thus a Villanelle has 19 lines.

• Lines may be of any length.

• The Villanelle has two rhymes. The rhyme scheme is aba , with the same end-rhyme for every first and last line of each tercet and the final two lines of the quatrain.

• Two of the lines are repeated:

1. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and the fourth stanzas, and as the second-to-last line in the concluding quatrain.

2. The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and the fifth stanzas, and as the last line in the concluding quatrain.

• Thus the pattern of line-repetition is as follows:

A1 b A2 - Lines in first tercet. a b A1 - Lines in second tercet. a b A2 - Lines in third tercet. a b A1 - Lines in fourth tercet. a b A2 - Lines in fifth tercet. a b A1 A2 - Lines in final quatrain.

In the above,

o The lines of the first tercet are represented by "A1 b A2", because the first and third lines rhyme and will be repeated later in the poem.

o The first line of each subsequent stanzas is shown as "a" because it rhymes with those two lines.

o Meanwhile the second line ("b") is not repeated but the second line of each subsequent stanzas rhymes with that line. A very famous Villanelle is “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Sestina

This is demanding but interesting kind of poem. It has six stanzas of six lines each, with a final tercet (three lines) that contains the same six words. Sestinas often don't rhyme, but they take the last words of the first stanza, and repeat them as last words in a different order in each stanza. So you are following a fixed pattern, although of course with your own words. Kipling and W. H. Auden, among others, have used this form.

Using numbers to represent each last word of a line, here is the pattern: 1,2,3,4,5,6 6,1,5,2,4,3 3,6,4,1,2,5 5,3,2,6,1,4 4,5,1,3,6,2 2,3,6,5,3,1 5,3,1. Here's an example: If the first stanza's lines end in: trout, sun, pants, mud, blue, love, then the second stanza's lines would end in: love, trout, blue, sun, mud, pants. One way to have fun with this form is to use words like "love" and "pants" because they can be both nouns (things) and verbs (actions). One line might say, "Nature is what I love" or another "the old woman climbs and pants". Dante Sestina

I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, to the short day and to the whitening hills, when the colour is all lost from the grass, though my desire will not lose its green, so rooted is it in this hardest stone, that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.

And likewise this heaven-born woman stays frozen, like the snow in shadow, and is unmoved, or moved like a stone, by the sweet season that warms all the hills, and makes them alter from pure white to green, so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.

When her head wears a crown of grass she draws the mind from any other woman, because she blends her gold hair with the green so well that Amor lingers in their shadow, he who fastens me in these low hills, more certainly than lime fastens stone.

Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone. The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass, since I have travelled, through the plains and hills, to find my release from such a woman, yet from her light had never a shadow thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.

I have seen her walk all dressed in green, so formed she would have sparked love in a stone, that love I bear for her very shadow, so that I wished her, in those fields of grass, as much in love as ever yet was woman, closed around by all the highest hills.

The rivers will flow upwards to the hills before this wood, that is so soft and green, takes fire, as might ever lovely woman, for me, who would choose to sleep on stone, all my life, and go eating grass, only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.

Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow, with her sweet green, the lovely woman hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.