The Pantoum is a poetic form that originated in France and was adapted from the Malayan song form that Pantun. The Pantoum hit the European scene in the nineteenth century and then the rest of the world in the twentieth.

The form has become very popular due to its intriguing and highly creative construction. Many say and most will agree that the Pantoum is a very similar to the poetic form the Villanelle

The Pantoum is created using a series of quatrains (4 line stanzas), recurring lines and a new rhyme introduced in each stanza.

The first quatrain leads the way for the poems recurring lines and has a rhyme of ABAB

The second stanza is made using the rhyme BCBC, the recurring lines (B) are lines 2 and 4 from the previous stanza with C being the new rhyme and also the recurring lines in the next stanza CDCD and so on until you reach the last stanza.

The last stanza is composed of using four recurring lines, not two, which are taken from the previous stanza and the first one.

Lines one and three of the last stanza contain the recurring lines 2 and 4 from the previous stanza and lines two and four are recurring lines for the first stanza, lines 3 and 1, making the first line of your poem the last line too.