A Radif Challenge
The "clouds and rain challenge" has ended. Here is another radif challenge to whet your imagination and ghazal skills.
In an article in Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry (edited by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych and published by Indiana University Press in 1994), Franklin D. Lewis describes how poets used the same radif in a number of poems, showing their skill and wit.
Lewis's article suggested a challenge to me; the challenge is to write a ghazal using a set radif.
The radif for this challenge is "moon." You may add an adjective to "moon" in your radif: "full moon," "autumn moon," "waning moon," and so on. Write Persian-style ghazals of five to twelve shers. Then I will choose several submitted ghazals using the refrain and publish them in a special issue of the 2008 Ghazal Page.
- Deadline: June 30, 2008
- Radif: moon, plus optional adjective
- Format: a Persian ghazal with five to twelve shers
- Limit: no more than three ghazals per poet
- Prize: publication in a special issue of The Ghazal Page
- Submission: Use this link below to submit a ghazal if you wish
Submit a
ghazal
You have until June 1, 2008 to answer the "moon" challenge. I hope to see so many good "moon" ghazals that I can use them in a double issue.
