Ghazal: A Hand Sewn Form of Poetry
The Ghazal form of poetry is artistic and carefully sewn together to achieve a masterpiece. While the list of requirements for this form are small, they create a large impact on the beauty and attraction of the poem as a whole.
The ghazal can touch on several subjects at once which can lead the reader to become overwhelmed while trying to find the overall meaning of the work. However, the rhyme and the refrain unite each couplet in the poem, like a stitch ties two pieces of fabric together. Without the stitch, the fabric would be separated, chaotic and unrelated. With the stitch, the two fabrics are united over and over again, eventually creating amassing one whole piece of fabric. Think of the rhyme/repetition as the needle and the refrain as the thread as we delve further into the form.
Ghazal itself needs to have five or more couplets. In each couplet, there is some form of repetition or rhyme. In “Sarah’s Ghazal” by Johnathan Musgrove, the “ake” sound is repeated throughout the poem in words such as “take”, “foresake”, “wake” and “shake”. The repetition or rhyme is almost (if not) immediately accompanied by the refrain (in this case “ake” is followed by the phrase “this body”) (215). The chaos of the ghazal resides in its ability to carry several subjects in one. The couplets themselves could relate to one another, but their placement in the poem does not directly affect its overall message. Therefore, couplets could be removed or rearranged with the tone and theme being unchanged.
Out of the examples given in An Exaltation of Forms, I found Daniel Hall’s “Souvenir” to stand out. The ghazal in this instance does not stick to only a rhyme, rather it uses both rhyme and repetition as the needle that sews the couplets together. For example, the first two couplets are as follows:
“He gazed into the air, searching for a word in my language.
I blinked. Across the pool a zephyr stirred in my language.
Where was I? Where was he? Where he looked remembering?
The air was his release; his burden, my language” (215).
The qafia or the scheme rhyme is the “urd” sound before the refrain, “my language.” When I read this, I can visualize the sewing needle going through the fabric. What made this ghazal stand out is that Hall reuses words in the couplet which makes the couplet itself more united. Its as if the repetition of the word is pulling the fabric together tightly before the refrain makes another stitch. The most powerful couplet in this instance is
“He blurted out the word in his own tongue, like a bell rung,
a distant bell, whose very speech was slurred, in my language” (215).
Not only does the “urd” rhyme with the previous couplets, but he also uses “word” to strengthen the rhyme. In addition, “bell” is used twice which gives the couplet an artistic and auditory movement. The ghazal is a work of art. It can be beautiful to read and even more beautiful to hear.
Ali, Agha Shahid. “Ghazal: To Be Teased Into Disunity.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 210–216.
Hall, Daniel. “Souvenir” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, p. 215.
