Grandpa Red: A Pantoum for National #Poetry Month
I am a contortionist when it comes to poetry in that I really enjoy the challenge of strict formats. This pantoum was inspired by the larger-than-life-figure that was my grandpa Red. Aspects of his personality also provide the basis for the character of Ned Warren in my work in progress. Lost Girl Road is a story of psychological suspense set in the woods of northwest Montana. Such a road really exists, as does the cabin in the woods. I am prone to taking details anchored in my real life and giving them varying degrees of fictional twist.
A pantoum is a highly structured Malaysian-form. The modern pantoum can be of any length and does not have to rhyme. It is composed of four-line stanzas (quatrains) in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line is often the same as the first. Everything is said twice.
Grandpa Red (A Pantoum)
Grandpa Red told me stories when I was young–
Told me about leaving school to go fur trapping with his dad,
Told me about the case of whiskey beneath his parents’ bed.
Told me about being the first house in Big Timber with electricity.
Told me about leaving school to go fur trapping with his dad,
He got an eighth grade education but wanted more.
Told me about being the first house in Big Timber with electricity.
A juvenile delinquent before there was such a word.
He got an eighth grade education but wanted more.
He became a miner and fought in the Second World War.
A juvenile delinquent before there was such a word–
He used to shoot things for fun.
He became a miner and fought in the Second World War.
Red became a prisoner of war; shot down over Germany.
He used to shoot things for fun.
Only Red made friends with the guard dogs
Red became a prisoner of war; shot down over Germany.
Days measured by Achtung und Schnell.
Only Red made friends with the guard dogs,
But he knew where the dogs’ loyalty lay.
Days measured by Achtung und Schnell.
He prayed for not so stale bread and not so rotten butter,
And he knew where the dogs’ loyalty lay
Freed, he stole a German sword hanging over a bombed fireplace.
He remembered the stale bread and rotten butter.
Back home he drank and he mumbled.
Freed, he stole a German sword hanging over a bombed fireplace.
Red can’t forget the orphanage and train station he fired on.
Back home he drank and he mumbled.
His buddy, warmed by a too late fire, died and the lice swarmed the cold floor.
Red can’t forget the orphanage and train station he fired on.
No one ever needs to see a war, no one.
His buddy, warmed by a too late fire, died and the lice swarmed the cold floor.
Red fights with Grandma and the alcoholism can’t be stopped.
No one ever needs to see a war, no one.
So he sits drunk in the cab of his truck whispering harsh German commands.
Red fights with Grandma and the alcoholism can’t be stopped.
Grandpa Red told me stories when I was young.
He sits drunk in the cab of his truck whispering harsh German commands
Grandpa Red used to tell me about the case of whiskey beneath his parents’ bed.
I even have the diary my grandpa kept when he was a prisoner of war during WWII. Years ago, I transcribed it for a literary methods class I was taking. Eventually, I hope to find a veterans magazine that will publish the transcript I made of the diary. In the meantime, I’m revising Lost Girl Road and working in fictionalized bits and pieces of my grandpa’s past.
What larger-than-life person do you know who might inspire a poem, book, or other work of art?
Permission must be granted by Jeri Walker-Bickett to use the images of her grandpa featured in this post.