Pantoum Time

Dear reader, Through reading my new McSweeney's which is devoted to exploring rare and diverse genres of writing, I discovered a poem structure from 1400 that originated in Malaysia. A pantoum. It is repetitive and creates a "trancelike" effect. Rules: poems have a series of quatrains, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza reappear (with small alterations) as the first and third lines of the next stanza. When you get to the last stanza, your first and third lines of your first stanza reappear as the last and second lines (a reversal of order) of your final stanza. Your pantoum can be any length, cover any subject matter, and a rhyme scheme is not mandatory. I decided to explore my conflicted feelings after ending the school year and leaving for the summer; the "trance" effect captures how I have felt stressed and like I'm going in circles thinking about whether I will move or not to another school or whether I will have a teaching job combined with my mourning/celebrating the end of a great/hard year of teaching. The first line comes from an interesting but troubling title of the cover article in the new Harper's - basically it explores the parallels between Obama and Hoover (as opposed to FDR)... clearly the title is not HOPEful nor optimistic in the reality of CHANGE.

Our New Summer
a pantoum by Catherine Kernodle

The best and brightest blow it again
At the rich poor bargaining table
Packing up and checking out for the summer
We are assured of sure uncertainties ahead

At the rich poor bargaining, we table
our concerns for now, blindly seeing
we are assured of sure uncertainties ahead.
My laughing tears turned to paddle away.

Our concerns, for now, blindly saw
That control is a chimera not unlike
How my laughing tears; turn to paddle away
Ducks in the pond, which you shouldn’t feed

Control, invisible and flimsy, is just so
Packing up and checking out for the summer
Ducks in the pond you shouldn’t feed; but,
The best and brightest will blow it again