On Mastering the Muse I just typed in almost the only pantoum I have ever admired. Curnow wrote it as an old man in protest against the French nuclear bomb tests in a Pacific atoll. We all took this very badly down here and New Zealanders feel especially close to Polynesians in general. As I typed the poem I began to experience something like awe at the way he exploited the pantoum form to pile on the effects. It is like music. In the hands of a master no form is beyond maximum expressive, poetic effect.
I found it in "The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English", edited by Michael Schmidt.
Janet
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