The ghazal continues its relentless battering of my brain. I really can’t express how painful it is wrenching these lines out onto the page. When I wrote my month (month plus) of tanka, I was struck by how fluidly the poems seemed to fall out of me. That form was, somehow, entirely mine, entirely in sync with my brain. The same is most definitely not true of the ghazal. The ghazal is like a language so foreign its alphabet and sounds cannot be produced with the rudimentary tools at my disposal. Folks who speak the language strain their ears toward me, but all I give back is cacophony.
Oy.
The ghazal is, clearly, going to kill me dead. What even is this form? It’s clearly something conjured up specifically to drive me over the edge. It’s too bad, too, because it’s such a cool-seeming form. I’m a lover of repetition and thought the refrain would click for me and help me deal with the rhyme. Um … not even close.
Yes, it’s still early in the ordeal. Anything’s possible. I’m worried because the 9th is fast approaching. That’s my niece’s birthday, and I always write a poem for her birthday … but usually I’ve got more of a handle on the year’s form by then and can turn out something workable. I have serious doubt about whether that will happen this year.
So, tonight’s poem. Ugh.
Shitty First Drafts (after Anne Lamott) Entreaties in the midst of drama need hearing. Of course, of course. Stop all tasks to speed hearing. There's a rich magic in patience and empathy and the power of both can seed hearing. Thick silence enfolds and closes around us pushing and pushing us all to plead hearing. Bubbling through stories that flow urgently grabbing up plot twists and all endings freed, hearing questions, conversations, ideas shaken and stirred dialog turning inward to bleed hearing. And I, Stacie -- head against this concrete wall -- insisting, reaching for more than a screed, hearing.
National Poetry Month 2022: the Ghazal
As I’ve done for more than ten years (what?!), I’ve chosen a poetic form, and I’m going to try to write a poem in that form every day for the month of April … and I’m saying that boldly, knowing that I’ve already failed. I couldn’t find my way through to a poem on Day One, but I’m determined to continue.
The “Ghazal” is the form I’ve chosen for this year. Here is the structure and a little backstory (thank you Poetry Foundation):
“Originally an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love, medieval Persian poets embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme. Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet). The last couplet includes a proper name, often of the poet’s. In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length, and the subject matter included both erotic longing and religious belief or mysticism.”
Should be interesting!