Tag: Ghazal

national poetry month, poetry

Ghazal for Poetry Month

Posted on by Amanda Stovicek D'Alessandro

Sliver of the icicle from a clogged gutter in April, wind like a spray // of water, biting raw our cheeks and hands held to pray.

A rolling over in my belly, again. You awaken like spring // should be. Up with the hyacinths and daffodils opening petals to pray.

Sticky fingers in my hair, ringing curls around your index // together we smell like peanut butter, a scent to teach me to pray.

When you climb the stairs alone, my back turned, your smile grows // like spring urgency or crocus bursting among new grass to pray.

Pray for sunshine. Golden hair as you run from me, a shriek as joyful as a prayer. // The robins scatter at your approach and you reach your hands out to pray.

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national poetry month, poetry, Prompts

National Poetry Month: ghazal

Posted on by Amanda Stovicek D'Alessandro

The ghazal! An Arabic poetic form originating from the 7th century that relies on repetition and lingers between the pain of loss and the beauty of love despite the loss. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but incredibly difficult to pull off in English.

ghazals must have at least five rhyming couplets or bayts and can have as many as fifteen. The couplets are linked thematically but not necessarily in situation or story. ghazals thrive in the abstract. Each couplet ends with the same refrain, which rhymes with the first line of the first couplet (AA BA CA, etc.).

There are stringent rules for ghazal forms, but in English, poets often use just those mentioned above as guiding principles.

Agha Shahid Ali is a well known Kashmiri poet whose poem Ghazal can be found here.

A contemporary interpretation of the ghazal appears in Evie Shockley’s poem where you are planted here.

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