In 2008, I began issuing challenges on The Ghazal Page, inspired by an article in Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry (edited by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych and published by Indiana University Press in 1994). The article, by Franklin D. Lewis, describes how poets used the same radif in a number of poems, showing their skill and wit. The challenges began with a common radif but expanded to a challenge to write ghazals in the tercet form devised by Robert Bly or to use color words as the radif.
The responses to the challenges have been wonderful. Each time, a number of poets submitted effective ghazals, often with very imaginative responses to the challenge. Reading through the challenge issues reveals a range of approaches to a common problem, a range that helps illuminate what the Ghazal can be in English.
Previous challenges focused on form, with a common radif or the Arabic ghazal form. This challenge focuses on a theme — books. Even in an electronic world of text flowing on screens, the book remains valuable for us. We have all been influenced for better or worse by books or by a book.
For this challenge, write a ghazal with the theme "book" or "books." You may emphasize a specific book, books in general, a genre, a physical type of book. The ghazal you submit should explore the experience of books. For format, you have a number of options, explained below.
Your focus should be a book, several books, or a genre. While you may mention authors (naturally!), please keep the focus on the books. Physical format of the book(s) may also be important: the direction in which your native language is written, for instance, or the type of binding, the type of paper and cover. You might consider eBooks as well.
You have a range of formats to choose from:
Please note that the Persian/Urdu ghazal differs from the Arabic in form, although definitions such as Answers.com do not make this distinction.
To be considered for the special issue presenting this challenge, your ghazal must follow the theme and format specifications.
If there are special concerns of format in your ghazals — spacing, style, etc — attach a document that shows the formatting you want. It can be in Word DOC, Open Office, WordPerfect, or PDF format.
This challenge is to write an English ghazal using the Arabic approach described by David Jalajel.
There are some key aspects to this challenge:
Here are some options for you to decide:
Send your ghazals (1 –) for this challenge by 1 March 2010. It's preferable if you send them in the body of a text-only email, but if you wish, send an attached word-processor document. I should be able to open almost any format. In your email, tell me that
I will look forward to a number of excellent poems.
There are several examples in David Jalajel's article on using the Arabic approach to the ghazal. You may group lines as he has done. Here's a ghazal I wrote as an example in addition to David Jalajel's:
Before pouring olive oil into the pan, I chop garlic
on the wooden board, opening a garden with each strike.
My Darling rises before me, before the sun and Sirius,
the star of these Dog Days of summer, star of heat stroke.
In the yard, two rabbits sit calmly, pausing from their meal
to keep an eye on me and the dog, fearful of any trick.
Ingmar Bergman died today; I imagine his funeral filmed
in his manner, shades of gray, its settings cool and stark.
Paging through Arberry's translation of Rumi's ghazals,
I pause for any passage where the words find me awake.
Gino, I can't imagine why you spend your time threading
words on these shaky lines, never naming What you seek.
Here is the same ghazal with each "couplet" presented as a single line:
Before pouring olive oil into the pan, I chop garlic on the wooden board, opening a garden with each strike.
My Darling rises before me, before the sun and Sirius, the star of these Dog Days of summer, star of heat stroke.
In the yard, two rabbits sit calmly, pausing from their meal to keep an eye on me and the dog, fearful of any trick.
Ingmar Bergman died today; I imagine his funeral filmed in his manner, shades of gray, its settings cool and stark.
Paging through Arberry's translation of Rumi's ghazals, I pause for any passage where the words find me awake.
Gino, I can't imagine why you spend your time threading words on these shaky lines, never naming What you seek.
Either format is fine for this challenge.
You may read the results of the challenges via the special issues index. If reading these poems inspires you to write ghazals that would have fit the contest, please send them along for possible publication in a regular issue. If you browse the last couple of years' issues, you'll see some ghazals written like that.