Lorraine Lewis (Blindwilderness) is the Poet of the Week for the W3 Weekly Prompt #96. Her challenge is to write a Pantoum poem on the theme of memories of childhood.
The childhood memory that I share in my pantoum is a memory from my sons’ childhood. They were walking down a country lane in Yorkshire and were bartering for swaps of their sweets.
Two Bags of Sweets
Dan! Quick!
What is it, Ben?
Will you swap your liquorish stick?
For my wine gum of a hen?
What is it, Ben?
Umm… swap my sweets? maybe… not,
For my wine gum of a hen?
Hmm, you’re asking a lot!
Umm… swap my sweets? maybe… not,
I’ll throw in a jelly baby,
Hmm, you’re asking a lot!
Maybe.
I’ll throw in a jelly baby,
You eat sweets too fast!
Maybe.
Try and make them last!
You eat sweets too fast!
You have more than me, Dan.
Try and make them last!
You have more than…
You have more than me, Dan.
Will you swap your liquorish stick?
You have more than…
Dan! Quick!
~
Lesley Scoble, March 2024
My secret drawer.
Click here to read the Lorraine’s prompt guidelines and an explanation on how to write the pantoum poetry form.
Lorraine’s prompt guidelines
Form (required): Pantoum
Number of stanzas: up to you
Theme (required): Memories of childhood
Pantoum?
The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. The first line of the series recurs as the last line of the closing quatrain, and third line of the poem recurs as the second line of the closing quatrain, rhyming ZAZA.
The design:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8
Continue with as many stanzas as you wish, but the ending stanza then repeats the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza (as its first and third lines), and also repeats the third line of the first stanza, as its second line, and the first line of the first stanza as its fourth. So the first line of the poem is also the last.
Last stanza:
Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza
~
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thank you, Lorraine, for your inspiring prompt.
My grateful thanks to David, The Skeptics Kaddish, for the W3 Weekly motivating poetic hebdomadal prompts.
Thank you, David, for your encouragement and support.
NOTE
Two Bags of Sweets is my third pantoum poem. My previous pantoums are: The Eye of the Kalamatrix (2022) and The Sun Abandons London (2023)
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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