Best Singaporean Poems

The Malay Pantun: Post-colonial writing

La capinera's wintering pieces of tropic tunes
    The garden warbler's echoes of dark melodies
Post-colonial poets return by summering fortunes 
    Learnt by rote as sacred Oxbridge duties

Note

The French "pantoum" may be modeled on the Malay pantun,
or at least it may aspire to, but it does not adhere to its
fundamental compositional criteria. For the original prototype, 
cf. T. Wignesan, "The Poietics of the Pantun" in Journal of the
Institute of Asian studies, Vol. XII, n° 2 (Chennai), March 1995,
pp. 1-15; reproduced with corrections in T. Wignesan. Sporadic 
Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images and Stereotypic 
Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad:
Cyberwit.net, 2008, pp. 49-67.

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2012