[David Callin]

I really like this one, Cameron.

Cheers

David

[R. Nemo Hill]

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

[James Brancheau]

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.