Ghazal: In Silence by Mimi Khalvati was offered by Poets.org's Poem-A-Day on March
6, 2013. It is a traditional ghazal with the radif "in
silence" and two qafias, "-ought" and
"-ort" resulting in an interesting rhyme scheme. The lines do
not have the same number of words as I thought a ghazal should, however, there
are 11 syllables in every line, which makes more sense than having the number
of words be equal IMHO, and is probably what the essayist meant in the
Poets.org post when he wrote "each line must be of the same length."
So, I live and learn.
I have tinkered with the ghazal form from time to
time since I discovered its existence last year (see "On Ghazals and
Haiku" posted November 29, 2012 in Songs of Eretz). According
to my latest research (books.google.com/books?isbn=8120718267, Kanda, K. C. -
1995 - Literary Criticism), the use of the qafia
and radif is common in ghazals in the Urdu language, so I suspect
that Ms. Khalvati is trying to imitate this subset of the form in English--and
she succeeds. I may devote the next few weeks to this type of ghazal as
well. Lots of rules to follow, which will be restrictive, but the
results, if In Silence in any measure, should be worth the effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.