The Dazzling Ghazal
Jan. 22nd, 2012 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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poetreePosted by jjhunter on behalf of Luisa A. Igloria
I can't remember when I first discovered the charms of the ghazal--- but I love this form, originally from Persia, and popularized almost single-handedly in North America by the late poet Agha Shahid Ali. There are many contemporary poets who now use and have adapted the form. My favorite description of it is one that Agha Shahid Ali wrote in one of the anthologies he edited--- where he likens each ghazal couplet to a gem or a pearl that shines in its own right, but gains more lustre as part of a larger setting (the poem/the entire ghazal).
I wrote this ghazal in November 2011 (it's now posted too at Via Negativa as part of my daily poem series), in part as a response to something that caught my eye on Buddhist writer-blogger Kaspalita Thompson's blog (Writing Our Way Home) --- and I wound up using it as the epigraph to my ghazal.
Once I decided on the couplet rhyme word ("singing") it was fairly easy to see what the poem's "scope" of themes would cover; what was surprising was the turns that it took, and how it managed to incorporate even a sense of commentary (on labor and gender), along with some humor. I very much enjoyed writing this poem.
Whenever I write in form, I also try to make my own sense of awareness of writing within the formal constraints, something that doesn't work too much against the sound of the voice I wanted to hear in the poem. I find that, writing in form, it's almost like I have to work to listen a little harder to myself--- but that's a good thing!
Ghazal of the Transcendental
by Luisa A. Igloria
Why can’t the Buddha vacuum underneath the sofa?
Because he has no attachments. ~ Kaspalita Thompson
One of the neighbors has a new statue of the Buddha, plunked down in her garden.
Perhaps she got it at a Black Friday sale, camped out all night, came home singing.
The Buddha teaches that we want to work free of delusion and suffering
in order to ascend, like the wren in the lilac, full-throated, singing.
I don’t know too many intimate details about his life but I do know
the Buddha was not a woman doing chores all day, much less singing.
Suffering is a pain in the ass, in the neck, in the heart mostly; since I
suffer knowing my children’s hurts, will I never know that lithe, joyous singing?
So the sacred verses speak of attachment and illusion. I know, but with all due
respect, it’s hard to feel detached when you nick yourself shaving (not singing).
Perhaps in the wilderness, in solitude, there might not be the struggle that comes of
engagement: but even then, there is the noise the mind makes in its own singing.
The Buddha can’t vacuum underneath my sofa. Or under the beds. Or do the dishes.
I know, I know. If I were to detach from these tasks, they’d be easy as singing.
And one must sing rather than drone, don’t you think? Even in the bramble, that’s
what the birds are saying: the richer the song, the more complex the singing.
—Luisa A. Igloria
11 26 2011
jjhunter on behalf of Luisa A. IgloriaI can't remember when I first discovered the charms of the ghazal--- but I love this form, originally from Persia, and popularized almost single-handedly in North America by the late poet Agha Shahid Ali. There are many contemporary poets who now use and have adapted the form. My favorite description of it is one that Agha Shahid Ali wrote in one of the anthologies he edited--- where he likens each ghazal couplet to a gem or a pearl that shines in its own right, but gains more lustre as part of a larger setting (the poem/the entire ghazal).
I wrote this ghazal in November 2011 (it's now posted too at Via Negativa as part of my daily poem series), in part as a response to something that caught my eye on Buddhist writer-blogger Kaspalita Thompson's blog (Writing Our Way Home) --- and I wound up using it as the epigraph to my ghazal.
Once I decided on the couplet rhyme word ("singing") it was fairly easy to see what the poem's "scope" of themes would cover; what was surprising was the turns that it took, and how it managed to incorporate even a sense of commentary (on labor and gender), along with some humor. I very much enjoyed writing this poem.
Whenever I write in form, I also try to make my own sense of awareness of writing within the formal constraints, something that doesn't work too much against the sound of the voice I wanted to hear in the poem. I find that, writing in form, it's almost like I have to work to listen a little harder to myself--- but that's a good thing!
Ghazal of the Transcendental
by Luisa A. Igloria
Why can’t the Buddha vacuum underneath the sofa?
Because he has no attachments. ~ Kaspalita Thompson
One of the neighbors has a new statue of the Buddha, plunked down in her garden.
Perhaps she got it at a Black Friday sale, camped out all night, came home singing.
The Buddha teaches that we want to work free of delusion and suffering
in order to ascend, like the wren in the lilac, full-throated, singing.
I don’t know too many intimate details about his life but I do know
the Buddha was not a woman doing chores all day, much less singing.
Suffering is a pain in the ass, in the neck, in the heart mostly; since I
suffer knowing my children’s hurts, will I never know that lithe, joyous singing?
So the sacred verses speak of attachment and illusion. I know, but with all due
respect, it’s hard to feel detached when you nick yourself shaving (not singing).
Perhaps in the wilderness, in solitude, there might not be the struggle that comes of
engagement: but even then, there is the noise the mind makes in its own singing.
The Buddha can’t vacuum underneath my sofa. Or under the beds. Or do the dishes.
I know, I know. If I were to detach from these tasks, they’d be easy as singing.
And one must sing rather than drone, don’t you think? Even in the bramble, that’s
what the birds are saying: the richer the song, the more complex the singing.
—Luisa A. Igloria
11 26 2011
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 06:38 pm (UTC)Caveat :: I tend to do better with either smaller forms [I rock hard at the tanka and have written multiple poems that were made up of multiple tanka stanzas] or ones where meter isn't as important. I think it's because I started out doing freeform poetry, so being "forced" into a specific form, particularly with meter, is not happy making for me...
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 08:52 pm (UTC)Thanks for stopping to read...
Date: 2012-01-23 12:14 pm (UTC)I find the ghazal to be a really flexible form, capable of adapting to a range of tones and purposes!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 02:24 pm (UTC)Singing and Droning
Date: 2012-01-23 02:45 pm (UTC)Yes indeed, thank you for pointing out that this struggle is also "the whole struggle of the spiritual life"... It has always been something of a marvel to me that we will want look for how to adorn a surface, when it does not need to be embellished - that same quest to make the world sing back to/with us, or sing some more. ~ Luisa
Yes...
Date: 2012-01-29 07:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 10:01 pm (UTC)Because he has no attachments.
Cannot stop laughing. Best new joke I have encountered in a very long time.