In the Nocturama
 

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Rev.1

The faces come when day goes off outside our glass.
We squirm from sleep to meet them: pressed wet-eyed to glass.

At first we paid them no attention, washing, hunting:
kept to the black work we plied in the glass.

But we'd rise from ourselves to see them: testing the walls
which edge their cage of nothing that side of glass.

They're here to teach us pity in the dark: & we pity
their fallen world past our divide of glass.

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
we'd teach them love: the coil & hide of glass.

We watch their watching: pinched eyes, predisposed to fix,
like the white days we've defied through sleep & glass.

Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?

Yet there are those of us who claim we need them, that this
kingdom of eyes has sanctified our glass,

that all of us & our housed lives are nothing
but the lives their stares confide to glass.

***
The faces come when day goes off outside our glass.
We squirm from sleep to meet them: pressed wet-eyed to glass.

We think they must be some exhibit: testing the walls
which edge their cage of nothing that side of glass.

They're here to teach us pity in the dark: & we pity
their fallen world passed our devide of glass.

Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
we'd teach them love: the coil & hide of glasss.

We watch their watching: pinched eyes, predisposed to fix,
like the white days we've defied through sleep & glass.

Yet there are those of us who claim we need them, that this
kingdom of eyes has sanctified our glass,

& our black work — our hunting, washing, gazing lives —
are but* the lives their stares confide in glass.


***just the lives?
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Cameron,

So I have been thinking about closure since your last poem in the Deep End. Now relative to my own preferences, the final line has to unwind quickly enough to create the resonance with what has gone before. I think the grammar of "are but* the lives their stares confide in glass." just stumbles too much over itself to create what I would consider a satisfying close. Similary, I thought that "as what night builds annihilates by day" which reminded me of Cally's "as the sun does to the dew" almost trips over itself also.

Ghazals to me are just utter cold bare tests of phrasing.

So I think the poem does an interesting shift with

"Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?"

but I am not sure you need the follow up with the next couplet, or whether that couplet could possibly match what you've already written. The perceptual trick is "perspective reversal" in that the glass does not keep you in, but keeps them out.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

[1] Perhaps this shift can come later, and and closer to the close, so you can build towards it, and then close the poem from it. For example, "we watch their watching" would set up the "the life denied them by our glass".
[2] I think you give the game away too early with "We think they must be some exhibit:". Keep the rabbit in the hat as long as possible, but just before it dies.
[3] I reckon "black work" is too open a phrase for the close, and suits the interior of the poem better.

Yeah!

I’m always excited to see a new ghazal, but this one is going to take meditating on. Meanwhile, I suppose you mean “past our divide.” And “glasss” in the fifth sher could lose an “s.”

Here’s an irrelevant comment as a placeholder for a serious critique: “Testing the walls” made me think of “Fawlty Towers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwXpsPiJ_WE

I guess it is a typo, but I rather enjoyed the Slytherin speak of glasss.:)

With Cameron, you never know.

(revision posted)
 

Hello Yves.
Ghazals are a furious joy. Your suggestions are very helpful: I agree with each of them. That's interesting about my "Meeting a Poet". I have made a revision with your comments in mind. There is another couplet now which worries me: because I hate the extraneous, but the ghazal is a perpetual motion machine only checked by the resourcefulness of the operator. We will see... Thanks, big man! this is very helpful, and I would be interesting by your response to my revision, if you trekked out to the endz.

Carl and Joe. Thank you for catching me. I am an illiterate Samuel Greenberg! No, just my own foolishness, no naive onomatopoeia.
Thank you.

Cameron--

On Form:
Is this intended to be a ghazal? Or just ghazal adjacent? The ghazals that I've been reading were a bit more strict about the rhyme (qafiya) going straight into the radif. But you've broken the two apart throughout with "to" "of" "them by our" and other breaks. If that's right, then I appreciate your teaching me that this degree of variation is still correct for the form.

Also, you start with hexameter in both lines of the first couplet, but then all of the couplets after that have pentameter in the second line by my count. I like the rhythm of the hexameter followed by pentameter, but then I wonder why you don't do that in the first couplet as well since it sets the meter for the rest of the poem? Also, I got 7 beats in the first line of the third couplet.

On Sense:
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It felt like a riddle. "We" are fish! I wonder if the title gives too little away? "Nocturama" means nothing to me, and even after repeated readings still adds nothing for me. It took me two reads to catch that we are fish in an aquarium. Once I got that and re-read it with that in mind the whole thing became delightful, though I still have lots of questions/comments on your intentions here.

S1L1: wouldn't the faces appear when day goes ON outside the glass?

S2: I like the cage of nothing, but the first line feels too prosaic a set up.

S3: I'm not sure why the fish would have any story to tell of fallenness (in the religious sense), though it seems to me that fish would wonder why we never float up. They would think us bottom-feeders. But I'm not sure they would think us "fallen".

S4: I like this one

S5: I'm not buying that fish could teach us love, but I'd buy it better if they would teach us to love to "dart & coil & hide inside the glass".

S6: "White days we've defied" -- I'm afraid I don't get that one.

S7: again we return to religious language with "sanctified", but I struggle to imagine the fish having a religious impulse

S8: not sure what is meant by "black work" ...

So happy to see the ghazal party continuing and hope any of the above was helpful. Overall, quite delightful!

Cameron,

It is super interesting to compare the versions. Though the second version keeps about the same amount of variation, it is actually easier to follow. Carefulness of sequencing appears to be the hidden art of the ghazal.

For those confused by the title, this may be useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnal_house

Yep. That's very helpful. Unfortunately, when I initially googled this the first full page of results all referenced the movie by this name. I wasn't persistent enough or I would have found the correct reference. My bad.

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My standard visual for reading ghazals is to imagine a disembodied head (not always the same one) coming into focus out of thin air in holographic profile reading aloud each sher/couplet in a dramatic, accentuated way and then floating out of view, making space for another disembodied head to make an appearance...

I think, too, that there is an implied elongated silence that exists between shers of a ghazal that a single space does not convey. In fact, although it may be verboten to suggest, I could even see each couplet being L/R/C justified to further create the appearance of each having their own place/space. Although each couplet in a ghazal is bound by a single word, their messages are meant to vary as if being sectioned off from a whole.

I love the language and the imagery of this. I'm just struggling to bring the whole of it into focus. Part of that is the form and part of it is your Picasso-like word-visuals.

I like Yves' description: "Ghazals to me are just utter cold bare tests of phrasing."

I've just noticed your link to help explain the title and it sheds much light! I had googled "Nocturama" but didn't get past the movie by the same name (seemingly interesting movie, btw).



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I think you’re more of a ghazal guru than I am now, Paula, but my impression is that none of this separation between qafiya and radif is correct for a strict, traditional ghazal. I’d personally be lenient with short, unstressed words like “to” and “of,” which I think of as attached to the qafiya, making a slant rhyme (and I prefer it if they rhyme a little too, e.g., in, is, its). I’m too much of a traditionalist to be happy about wider separations like “through sleep &” and “them by our,” but I wouldn’t strip the poem of its ghazal status on those grounds. It’s an unruly one, that’s all.

This isn’t like you, Cameron. I was all ready to wrack my brains over this one as I always have, and all of a sudden you throw out a clue that ties everything up like a Christmas present. Viewed from that angle, the poem is indeed delightful, but I thought you once said you’d be mortified to have a poem of yours described like that. There must be a false bottom …

Perhaps the title is either too much or not enough. Not enough for lazy readers like me who give up after one page of errant google search results and just plow ahead reading the poem without the decryption key. Too much for diligent readers who pick up the key before starting their reading of the poem. For them, it's no longer a riddle, and they don't get the fun of cracking it. I wish it were fish and not unidentified nocturnal beasties, though the black and white imagery now makes more sense.

Hi, Cameron—

I like this a lot, especially the ambiguity you develop about who is imprisoned and who is free.
In the 6th and 7th shers, the qaafiya and the radif are separated by quite a few words. Could you bring them closer with only a word or two (preposition, article, or possessive adjective) separating them?
Examples:
Sher 6: “like the white days we’ve slept through & defied the glass.”
Sher 7: “the life that they’ve been denied by [our] glass?”

I wonder if “deride” would be a good qaafiya to contrast with “sanctified.”
“Guide,” “implied,” “collide,” and “deified” also seem like promising possibilities.

Glenn

Rattle's latest issue was a "Tribute to Ghazals" and it was fascinating to read twenty of them in a row and see what different poets chose to do with the form. But your comment put me in mind of what poet Mary Keating wrote in her contributor notes:

I just love that.

Cameron, to get to your poem and the actual point of this thread -- I really like this, very much. It helped perhaps that I already knew what a Nocturnal House is (thank you, Roller Coaster Tycoon), but I don't think that spelling it out hinders the poem; it's the inversion of our [assumed] perspective that really makes it, and for that, it is helpful to have some idea of the context.

I agree with Yves's first comment that you may not need the final two shers. "Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse / the life that's been denied them by our glass?" feels like a natural end-point. You've landed the plane; now let us take that away to chew on.

I like this a lot, Cameron. I have one very dull, though for me important, criticism/suggestion. I think it's a shame that you don't keep to the very regular iambic hexameter that you establish in the opening couplet. The poem is haunting and hypnotic, but for me that quality would be heightened by a more consistent metre. That's all.

Cheers

Mark

I've never written in this form so have nothing to add to that discussion.

I've been reading this off and on over the last few days. One of the things I've been looking for is how so often you take a thing and transform it into a different thing before our eyes, how the world inside your poems is never steady, much less anchored. This is very good. It's a strong poem and I'd buy and talk about a book made of poems like this. Have you thought of making it longer? Now there is a hint that the two worlds can be confused. How different are they? Maybe with a little more space that could become ever more milky. What's a few hours--or time zones--between friends anyway? You state that theme in the close. I can't help but wonder how much more could happen before our eyes.

I just realized I was thinking of early Eliot.

It's a challenge to comment on your poems. I'm not good with the forms but I'm always sucked in by the poem. It's more like giving rehearsal notes to the playwright. What the mingling was more thorough. Intense?

But as I said, it's a strong poem as it is. I'm just brainstorming what may be BS but why not share it?

*** I just realized I suggested your last poem be longer. I hope I haven't fallen into a comfort zone critique. I don't think so. Need to consider that.

Hi Cameron,

I like this. The dark, uncanny mood of it. It reminds me of a science fiction short story (more than one, I think) that I've read -- in a good way, I hasten to add. And it leaves itself open to being read as metaphor or allegory without laying one out. As John says, I'd happily read a book of poems like these.

On the form: It's ghazal-like in its couplet and rhyme-scheme, though for me, the narrative form of the poem with its sequential stanzas gets in the way of it working like a ghazal, doing what a traditional ghazal does. But fair enough, that's not what the poem is aiming for and it doesn't have to. For me, the variation in the position of the internal rhyme works. I still hear the rhyme, and besides, you're not writing a traditional ghazal.

I much prefer the original final couplet, albeit with "are just" in place of "are but". I think it's stronger, denser. I think you've diluted it by making it into two.

In the two couplets you've split this into, "At first we paid them no attention" seems very flat/prosaic, and "and all of us and our housed lives", a little wordy, since "our housed lives" would pretty much cover "all of us", I think.

In this couplet:

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
we'd teach them love: the coil & hide of glass.

The first "&" seems a little superfluous. With an "and if", the questions would seem to be continuing, but what follows is a statement. It might be interesting to try making it a question, though. To be less definite about the consequences if their admission. More meditative, maybe. For example,

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
could we teach them love: the coil & hide of glass?

or

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
would we teach them love: the coil & hide of glass?


best,

Matt

I really like this one, Cameron.

Cheers

David

The ghazal really is an exacting form. Perhaps that's why a lot of the contemporary Western examples tend to omit at least one of its rules. In my own I dispense with the rhyme, as I take the form as an opportunity to utilize the repetend as a form of rhyme. Many of them omit the mention of the author's name in the final sher, the self-address. The subject matter also veers precipitously away from the longings of love and desire that were their original inspiration. I notice, in Paula's thread, that she tries to ascertain, in the act of comparative composition, just what liberties are allowed. It seems fair to use the form as one will, morphing it: for the poem is the jewel, as opposed to the form.

And despite all that, Cameron, I do harbor a prejudice against your poem since it violates the one rule of the ghazal that I find its most significant: that the shers be discrete entities; that one changes focus and navigational direction in the intervals between them; that they be related only by that repeated word. Your shers, on the contrary, develop almost narratively (as Matt points out), they all strive to clarify one direction of thought, building one upon the other. And though I like them, I can't help but want to wrench them from their common purpose—a common purpose which seems to smother their more oblique connections. Fairly or unfairly, I confess it will take me a lot of effort to judge the poem objectively, to wipe away my expectations of the form.

Nemo

I love this Cameron, and the last two shers I think are phenomenal. It very distantly reminds me of Wings of Desire—some moments anyway. It is haunting and I’m very taken with this. And I really like much of the language in the poem, esp “when day goes off”— there is a casual depth to that that I admire. A way of putting things that’s both natural and unique. The only place I tripped was “coil & hide of glass.” It’s interesting, and I want to like it, and get it, but having trouble wrapping my head around that one. Probably it’s me.

I’m a pretty big fan of the ghazal, and it appears much of the board is as well, though I don’t really feel qualified to comment on form requirements. It’s such a great poem and I wish there were a way to bridge that gap, if that’s important to you. Obviously if there were some way to justify such a departure in form... The only thing that came to mind—and probably it’s rubbish—is perhaps give some sort of nod to that in the last sher—instead of a signature. It seems to me that in this poem there is a kind of communion that is denied, there is an isolation present thematically, even though the shers are connected and telling a kind of story. Fwiw.