"The ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th century pre-Islamic Arabic verse."
Before reading the packet for this coming week, I decided to do a little bit of research on the Ghazal, because it was the first form we'd mentioned this semester that I had never heard of. Now I'm looking forward to finding out the mechanics of it, just because of the subject it's usually written on.
I think loss mixed with beauty is an interesting topic--because you don't just have to write on acceptance of loss, but rather on why the loss can be beneficial to you. I don't know, I just find that interesting. I'm not committing myself to the form or anything, but it doesn't seem like something I'd be totally against. The only thing I'm not so sure on? I read, also, that if it's a strict Ghazal, there is no enjambment allowed! I love enjambment (although I've gotten several comments on poems for class where people want to know why I broke the line where I did?)!
Keep in mind this information is from Wiki, because it was just quick research, but still, it's interesting preliminary work.
P. S. Found a Blog dedicated just to Ghazals, if anyone is interested in the form... http://ghazalville.blogspot.com/
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
14. Grapes, Song Lyrics and Moths: Billy Collins "Japan" and why it's mostly awesome
Japan by Billy Collins
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
I absolutely love this poem and I really enjoyed doing the Haiku practice for class…can’t wait to try and work it into a poem sort of like this one.
This poem is great because it really explains how I think a lot of us feel about poetry and I know it illustrates perfectly my opinion: That your poem is to be given to the reader to be reader and be interpreted by their own life-lenses. Every person will read it differently, and every reading, as suggested above, may be different.
I was surprised by the stanza:
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
Though the image is nice, I’m not sure how I feel about the meaning behind it. The idea that it’s “perfect” was the first thing that struck me--sometimes don’t you have a reading of a poem that isn’t entirely perfect? That leaves you feeling some heightened emotion you’d rather not feel? So there’s that, but I’m also not sure about the analogy of a grape. Grapes basically taste exactly the same each time you eat them, and in this case he’s eating the SAME grape…I don’t know how well that lends to the message of getting something new from the poem each time. I think I understand what he meant--the grape is the poem, and he’s just explaining that he’s reading it over and over and it’s the same poem--but I would have liked to see some foreshadowing of the array of meanings he’ll eventually get from it, later in the poem.
I love the images of him walking through the house and talking to the dog, and I particularly enjoyed this stanza:
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
Not only is the rhythm here great, but he says a lot with such a simplified idea--something all of us can relate to with songs, right? When it’s in your head and you’re not sure you want it to be. You wake up singing it to yourself, not sure when you started, and then you’re singing it to yourself in the kitchen until someone reminds you to stop? This packs all of that in to just three lines, without actually coming out and saying it.
And last but not least, because I have to narrow the things I like about this down so I don’t end up writing this blog post all night, I love the sudden shift in the middle and how he showed that by a change in stanzas. Just by having a couplet in the middle rather than a tercet, he tells the reader: Hey, I’m going to talk about something else now, something more metaphorical, but it’s okay, because I warned you about it right here. I think that’s great. The ending image, of a moth as a hinge hovering over the bed, is something that will stay with me for a long time.
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
I absolutely love this poem and I really enjoyed doing the Haiku practice for class…can’t wait to try and work it into a poem sort of like this one.
This poem is great because it really explains how I think a lot of us feel about poetry and I know it illustrates perfectly my opinion: That your poem is to be given to the reader to be reader and be interpreted by their own life-lenses. Every person will read it differently, and every reading, as suggested above, may be different.
I was surprised by the stanza:
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
Though the image is nice, I’m not sure how I feel about the meaning behind it. The idea that it’s “perfect” was the first thing that struck me--sometimes don’t you have a reading of a poem that isn’t entirely perfect? That leaves you feeling some heightened emotion you’d rather not feel? So there’s that, but I’m also not sure about the analogy of a grape. Grapes basically taste exactly the same each time you eat them, and in this case he’s eating the SAME grape…I don’t know how well that lends to the message of getting something new from the poem each time. I think I understand what he meant--the grape is the poem, and he’s just explaining that he’s reading it over and over and it’s the same poem--but I would have liked to see some foreshadowing of the array of meanings he’ll eventually get from it, later in the poem.
I love the images of him walking through the house and talking to the dog, and I particularly enjoyed this stanza:
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
Not only is the rhythm here great, but he says a lot with such a simplified idea--something all of us can relate to with songs, right? When it’s in your head and you’re not sure you want it to be. You wake up singing it to yourself, not sure when you started, and then you’re singing it to yourself in the kitchen until someone reminds you to stop? This packs all of that in to just three lines, without actually coming out and saying it.
And last but not least, because I have to narrow the things I like about this down so I don’t end up writing this blog post all night, I love the sudden shift in the middle and how he showed that by a change in stanzas. Just by having a couplet in the middle rather than a tercet, he tells the reader: Hey, I’m going to talk about something else now, something more metaphorical, but it’s okay, because I warned you about it right here. I think that’s great. The ending image, of a moth as a hinge hovering over the bed, is something that will stay with me for a long time.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
13. Snoring Sonnets?
I personally find love poems kind of snore-inducing. Not all love poems, of course, but most. In the eighth grade I had to do a group poetry project and when I told my group (of fellow girls) that I preferred poems about sadness and death, they all had looks on their faces like that wanted to go out and buy me a truck load of romantic comedies and subscription to Seventeen magazine. Sure, I like those things, too, but there are only so many times I can read grandiose lines like "I fell into the liquid aqua of her eyes, brushed fingers over the roses in her pearly skin."
ZzzZzzZzzZzz.
Maybe it's because I just don't really relate to it, I don't know, but it has to be the reason I generally shy away from sonnets. I find their subject matter...flat. Again, NOT always, but often, particularly with older poems.
The point of all of that introduction was to highlight the reasons I DO like Shakespeare's Sonnet 130.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
I love a writer that can make fun of himself (or herself!), and Shakespeare certainly does that here. I know we talked about it in class, but I just wanted to point out that this was my favorite of that packet just because it was such an anti-love love poem. Sure, the female in me should maybe be offended that he looks at her this way, and I would much rather have a guy write something like Sonnet 18 for me...but I appreciate the edge to 130.
ZzzZzzZzzZzz.
Maybe it's because I just don't really relate to it, I don't know, but it has to be the reason I generally shy away from sonnets. I find their subject matter...flat. Again, NOT always, but often, particularly with older poems.
The point of all of that introduction was to highlight the reasons I DO like Shakespeare's Sonnet 130.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
I love a writer that can make fun of himself (or herself!), and Shakespeare certainly does that here. I know we talked about it in class, but I just wanted to point out that this was my favorite of that packet just because it was such an anti-love love poem. Sure, the female in me should maybe be offended that he looks at her this way, and I would much rather have a guy write something like Sonnet 18 for me...but I appreciate the edge to 130.
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