Week Four | Ego Tripping Pantun
Yesterday we celebrated International Women's Day! Today. We celebrate ourselves. We will be writing Ego Tripping ("I am") poems in Pantun form.
Ego Tripping by Nikki Giovanni
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls 5
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe 10
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman 15
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours 20
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day 25
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was 30
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard 35
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew 40
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was 45
laid across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
I mean … I … can fly 50
like a bird in the sky …
Ego Tripping Performance - A Different World
We will be writing our own Ego Tripping poems in the form of a pantun!
Pantun Poetic Form:
- Quautrain
- ABAB Rhyme Scheme
- 8-10 syllables per line typically
- "The pantun is a four-lined verse consisting of alternating, roughly rhyming lines. The first and second lines sometimes appear completely disconnected in meaning from the third and fourth, but there is almost invariably a link of some sort. Whether it be a mere association of ideas, or of feeling, expressed through assonance or through the faintest nuance of a thought, it is nearly always traceable"
Pantun Format
Line A
Line B
Line C
Line D
REPEAT Line B
Line E
REPEAT Line D
Line F
REPEAT Line E
REPEAT Line C
REPEAT Line F
REPEAT Line A
Tips:
Don't be afraid to exaggerate!
Brag! Be bold!