[Carl Copeland]

Susan and Walter and my own recent effort have piqued my interest in ghazals, and I wonder if you could recommend a few. I’ve found lovely translations of classical ghazals that don’t preserve the form (and probably shouldn’t), but I’d like to see how poets handle the formal elements in English. I did find a 12-year-old thread with a rather old-fashioned ghazal by James Elroy Flecker and a humorous one by John Hollander, and I’ve seen Spherical references to ghazals by Siham Karami and Nemo, but next to none with surviving links. I have found Siham’s “The Year of the Dragon” and “The Triumph of Roses.” In the first, she drops the qaafiyaa (a common move in English, says one site), and in the second she varies the radif, “rose,” with “pharaohs” and “arrows.” I’d like to see what else has been done (short of free verse ghazals—almost an oxymoron). Note that Facebook has been blocked here for several years, so if there’s still a Ghazal Page there, it won’t help. Thanks!

[Matt Q]

If you're looking for something with a more modern feel, I like this one, "A total non-apology", by former Spherean, Ray Briggs (who posted here, I think, as R.A. Briggs). Among other things, I particularly like how the takhallus is employed to add another layer to final sher.

[Carl Copeland]

A modern feel is fine, Matt, and this one is better than fine. Much appreciated!

[Ned Balbo]

The eminent & eminently gifted Charles Martin has "My Last Ghazal" at Light Quarterly, his bit of fun with the form...

https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/charles-martin/

He's got two ghazals in the new Birmingham Poetry Review as well (that's the one at U. of Alabama at Birmingham, edited by Adam Vines), though they might only be accessible in print.

Jane Satterfield's "Flight to Dreamland" can still be accessed here...though the designers of the post took artistic license in capitalizing the whole poem which, in reality, is in ordinary font & caps. :-)

https://twitter.com/RiverStyxMag/sta...25202514370561

[Ned Balbo]

Carl, it sounds as if you haven't located R. Nemo Hill's Magellan's Reveries? I think they're excellent.

For the book: https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/magel...y-r-nemo-hill/

You mention FB being blocked which made me wonder if other sites might be blocked where you are as well....For that reason, I've pasted a sample poem from the book site here.

~ Third Reverie of Magellan ~ R. Nemo Hill

Men who bring no tools with which to serve.
Men whose desperate oath is: ‘We will serve’.

Dried and salted. Blistered until brittle.
Boiled in lye and weevil. Casked. Preserved.

Bastard son of a slave of a nameless ship’s cook!
‘Your beard stinks of the smoke of those who serve!’

The psalms of the orphaned, who turn the half-hourglass:
‘Water. Sand. God of our Time, we serve.’

Praise barber’s pelican, red wine and oakum,
turpentine, quince jelly, pitch. All serve.

Castilian, Basque, Sicilian, Português,
‘Al cuarto! Al cuarto!’ ‘On deck! On deck!’—to serve.

Ass-back to the railing, bowel’s exposed
to all—. Leviathan, your dinner’s served!

We teach the rats to dance on dead calm nights.
Which man believes he gets what he deserves?

At last you’ve won your reeking ship, Magellan,
this tub of vinegar your rage would serve.

[Mark McDonnell]

I echo Ned's recommendation of Nemo's extraordinary Magellan's Reveries and offer also Mary Meriam as a brilliant practitioner of the form, examples of which are scattered through all her books. Here's one:

ALONE IN LOVE

She isn’t mine. I am alone in love.
Inside my mind and soul, I moan in love.

The sound is pearly shell. The sound is slight,
only a cell of sound, a stone in love.

My flower bed so lavishly in bloom,
my elm tree’s swelling leaves, my own in love.

Those fragile fantasies of love I drew
erased in anguish, overthrown in love.

She hasn’t ears and eyes for this, old fool.
Impossible, your monotone in love.

Just face it, Mary, time is running short.
Love less, or you will die alone in love.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks so much, Ned. Martin’s ghazal is clever, and Nemo’s is fascinating, as is everything of his I’ve seen. (If you’re listening in, Nemo, your book will have to wait till I can get money to the West.) I can’t open the link to Satterfield’s, but perhaps someone will be kind enough to post it.

[Susan McLean]

Carl, here is one of my other two ghazals.

https://www.mezzocammin.com/iambic.p...ry&page=mclean

Susan

[Tony Barnstone]

At the risk of being self-serving, a number of the ghazals in my translation of Ghalib— Faces Hidden in the Dust: Selected Ghazals of Ghalib maintain the form.

I like this one by Patricia Smith: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...hip-hop-ghazal

[Ned Balbo]

Carl, here you go. (It was originally in River Styx.)

Flight to Dreamland ~ Jane Satterfield

Prior to the late 1990’s, air controllers guided flights to Area 51
in Nevada under the code word “Dreamland.”


Forget them if you can—the dark areas in Dreamland.
Debunk ghost lights and sleepless nights in Dreamland.

The longest runway in the world is a dry lake bed.
Stealth planes and rumors cloud the sky in Dreamland.

Eyewitnesses report whooshing sounds and luminosity
while scanning skies for the mother ship in Dreamland.

Ancient Hindu writings describe flying craft; documents deny
that extraterrestrial ships are housed in Dreamland.

An airport in your dreams means arrival or departure:
But it’s just another non-existent terminal in Dreamland.

Though you can Google area coordinates, trespassing is a crime:
camouflaged guards in SUVs rove the perimeters of Dreamland.

Warhead testing requires secret sites, land to be relinquished for
20,000 years. No one farms the irradiated soil of Dreamland.

Sonic booms and mushroom clouds may be distracting, but
you’ll get nothing done if your head’s stuck in Dreamland.

Flip through Jane’s Defence Weekly to keep apprised of
each day’s plans for what the future holds in Dreamland.