The Ghazal

Obviously I'm not much of a blogger, as soon as my writing skills are taken up somewhere else I just forget their is bloggin to be done! But, here I am to let you know about 'The Ghazal.'

What Is It?


The ghazal is a lyric poem consisting of thematically autonomous couplets, unified by rhyme and metre. Although it is a 1300 year-old pre-Islamic Persian form, its non-linear format anticipates contemporary post-modern poetic sensibilities. Traditionally invoking melancholy, love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Iranian, Indian, and Pakistani musicians. Ghazal (adapted into Urdu from Persian) is a reference to the cry of a gazelle. Agha Shahid Ali, who introduced it in its classical form to Americans, compared each ghazal couplet to ‘a stone from a necklace,’ which should continue to ‘shine in that vivid isolation.’
 
Features


English writers tend to interpret the conventions of the ghazal in very personal ways. However, to say that most ghazals observe most or all of these features:

• between five and fifteen couplets
• each couplet is structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous
• in the opening couplet, both the first and second lines close with the refrain (the refrain is a word or brief phrase)
• subsequent couplets repeat the refrain in the second line (which rhymes with both lines of the first couplet)
• the final couplet usually includes the poet’s signature, referring to the author in the first or third person, and frequently including the poet’s own name or a derivation of its meaning

Note on ghazals in translation: numerous scholars and poets have attempted to translate ghazals from their original language to English. The task is daunting, as keeping the literal meaning of each poem while respecting the rhyme, refrain, and length of lines is difficult, if not impossible.

An Example

‘Even the Rain’ by Agha Shahid Ali

What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?

But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.


‘our glosses / wanting in this world’ ‘Can you remember?’

Anyone! ‘when we thought / the poets taught’ even the rain?


After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.

And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.


Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.

For mixers, my love, you’d poured—what?—even the rain.


Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:

Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.


How did the Enemy love you—with earth? air? and fire?

He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.


This is God’s site for a new house of executions?

You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?


After the bones—those flowers—this was found in the urn:

The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.


What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?

A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.


How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with

flames—

to help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.


He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves,

he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.


New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me—

to make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.


They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?

No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.


All credit goes to my poetics course at the University of Queensland for this great information.

The Blues Poem

I had my first poetry workshop the other day, and thought it would be a good idea to share the Blues Poem with you... Enjoy!

What Is It?

One of the most popular forms of American poetry, the blues poem stems from the African-American oral tradition and the musical tradition of the blues. The phrase ‘the blues’ is a synonym for having a fit of the blue devils, meaning down spirits, depression and sadness. A blues poem typically takes on themes such as struggle, despair, and sex. African-American writer Ralph Ellison said that although the blues are often about struggle and depression, they are also full of determination to overcome difficulty ‘through sheer toughness of spirit.’ This resilience in the face of hardship is one of the hallmarks of the blues poem. But the blues is about more than hard times; it can be humorous and raunchy as well:

Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
It may be sending you baby, but it’s worrying the hell out of me.

Features

There are few characteristics common to all blues, because the genre takes its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performances. The original lyrical form of the blues was probably a single line, repeated three times. It was only later that it evolved into the current, most common structure:


 a statement is made in the first line
 a variation is given in the second line
 and an ironic alternative is declared in the third line.

An example:
‘St. Louis Blues’ by WC Handy

I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
’Cause my baby has left this town.

If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, just like I feel today,
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, like I feel today,
I’ll pack my trunk and make my get-away.

St. Louis woman, with all her diamond rings,
Stole that man of mine, by her apron strings;
If it wasn’t for powder, and her store-bought hair,
That man I love wouldn’t’ve gone nowhere!
Nowhere!

I’ve got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be;
Lord, that man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me!

Gee, I love that man like a school boy loves his pie,
Just like an old Kentucky colonel loves his rock & rye,
I guess I’ll love that man until the day I die.

And a song...



All credit goes to my poetics course at the University of Queensland for the great info.