[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!