Hacker likes to
write in the ghazal form.
She does something every
night in the ghazal form.
I've never attempted this
mode of Arabic verse,
But I should try something
light in the ghazal form.
It might also be a medium
for invective:
Do poets vent their
spite in the ghazal form?
It's mystifying to me,
really, how anyone
Could seem to take
delight in the ghazal form.
The anticlimactic repetition
ending each couplet
Makes it difficult to
excite in the ghazal form.
Hard to imagine Michael
Longley or Seamus Heaney
Remembering the potato
blight in the ghazal form.
Even a mind of the caliber
of Albert Einstein
Would sound less than
bright in the ghazal form.
Yet Marilyn Hacker writes
passably good verse
About war-torn countries'
plight in the ghazal form.
O dylan of darkspeech, fight! Let
your words take flight!
Show your poetic
might in the ghazal form!
7 comments:
Before today I'd never heard of the ghazal form. I'm still not sure I know what it is, but it was entertaining.
I'm not sure I did it right. There's probably something heterodox prosodically about my ghazal. But I thought I'd give it a try. Thanks for the kind words!
Technically, the meter for each couplet is (I think?) supposed to be locked in by the opening two lines--but even the biggest proponent of the ghazal in English, the late Agha Shahid Ali, put that rule aside when it suited him. You did give your reader the pleasure of surprise in variation at the end of each couplet, and that, joined with your comical despair, made this one a good read.
Thanks, Jeff! I'm currently reading Marilyn Hacker's book Names, in which there are many ghazals. I hope to learn more about the form and perhaps someday produce a better example of it!
I have seen a ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali, in which the meter seemed approximately pentametric, but fairly flexible.
I've reread Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal beginning "Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?" -- and the meter is very strictly, fixedly, and unvaryingly dodecasyllabic! So yes, the meter should be regular!
If you can obtain a copy, I highly recommend Ali's book of English ghazals, "Call Me Ishmael tonight." Many of them are prosodically strict, but he does cut loose in others, and I doubt he'd frown on your variable meter.
Ali also edited a neat book called "Ravishing Disunities." It was billed as an anthology of "real ghazals in English," and while many of the poems are very cool, they're not, despite the title, all proper ghazals--but Ali's preface is a lively and informative introduction to the form.
Thanks, Jeff. I'll check my library or my bookstore!
Post a Comment