Pantoum tradition refers to the historical and evolving practice of composing poems using the pantoum form—a Malayan-origin structure adapted into Western poetry—characterized by interlocking quatrains in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next, culminating in a circular closure where the final stanza echoes lines from the opening; this tradition emphasizes musicality, recursive meditation, and thematic amplification through repetition, with notable practitioners including Charles Baudelaire, John Ashbery, and contemporary poets who use the form to explore memory, trauma, or cyclical time.

Refers to pantoum's cultural origins and formal development. Study Malay poetry and French adaptations. Victor Hugo and Baudelaire brought form to Western poetry. Understand cultural context before appropriation.