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
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a
Premium Membership.
