The Ghazal Page 2009
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The photographs on the home page and in the 2009 pages come from Maramec Spring Park, eight miles southeast of St. James, Missouri. It's well worth a visit even if you don't fish for trout.
The results of this challenge are over two dozen ghazals by twenty-two poets, presented here in five different pages. There's a wide variety of tone, rhythm, and imagery that make these results very satisfactory.
Look for a new challenge and a new design in a couple of weeks.
Here's the last issue for 2009. There are six ghazals by four poets for your reading.
The color radif challenge is closed. I'm putting that special issue together and hope to publish it in the last half of December. When it is published, I will also post a new challenge.
Although the six ghazals for November don't deal with the season as a topic, they do seem thematically appropriate to it. Depending on one's sense of the seasons, winter begins in early November (which is why Midwinter occurs on the winter solstice around December 22). Anyway, these ghazals have both a sense of the difficulties of life and of its promise within/beyond those difficulties.
Saturday morning in the Ozarks: a strong storm just came in, thunder, lightning, hail. The hail is at least pea-sized, possible a bit larger, filbert-sized perhaps. The storm came with a strong wind; it brought the dog into our computer room as she sought safety under the table. It feels like the temperature has dropped. A glance at the radar map shows more storm coming our way. The day feels different as a result of the storm's arrival.
This meteorological report relates to poetry how? A good poem should pass through your mental atmosphere, changing the temperature, changing the feel of the day, of your experience, at least briefly. There are half a dozen ghazals in this issue that should do that for you. I hope the selection and sequence have their own force beyond that of the individual poems.
Please remember the color radif challenge!
The September issue has been ready for a few days, but I held back a little since August was late. As always, I'm pleased with the quality of these ghazals, and their varied ways of using the form. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Don't forget the color radif challenge!
At long last, here are the results of the tercet challenge. There were enough successful tercet ghazals to populate four pages, linked from the index for the tercet challenge. I've assigned each page a somewhat arbitrary one-word title, drawn from one of the ghazals on that page. In compiling the pages, I tried to create sequences with some continuity and surprise. Other sequences are, of course, possible, as would be other titles for each page. In any case, read and delight!
There is a new radif challenge on the main page: check it out!
Getting these three summer issues together and online has taken much longer than I had hoped. Here they are, at last. The September issue should appear in a more timely way, although I may hold it until the end of the first week of September to give these issues a little more time as the current issue.
The six poems in the May issue accumulated over a period of months. As they were submitted, I saw them forming a group to celebrate summer. As background, I prefer to think of the seasons starting according to traditional dates: fall about August 2, winter about November 1, spring around February 2, and summer around May 1 or 2. That fits with the way I've always experienced the seasons in the temperate zone. So, this issue celebrates the onset of summer.
An "April Fool's" issue of ghazals? These ghazals are not a prank on you, reader, but variously humorous or unusual uses of the form, for a kind of manic humor, for satire, for cursing (the poet's ancient power). Read them lightly and listen to their melodies and rhythms and enjoy their multifarious word-plays.
An intense, wet snow is falling as I write this — a late winter/early spring snowstorm, making the streets slick. A lot of people complain of snow, but we don't really have that much here. Why a couple of sentences about the snowstorm outside? Doesn't the physical environment in which we write affect our writing? My feet are chilly as I type these words. Enough . . . .
There are five poems in the March issue. I've selected and sequenced them according to my sense of their themes and tones. My comments in the issue may give a sense of how I respond to the poems, but, as always, read the ghazals first and then (if at all) the editor's comments.
Be sure to visit the main page and read the new challenge. It takes a different direction, dealing with the stanza (sher) form instead of focusing on one radif for every poet. I hope that you will take up the challenge, find it rewarding, and send me the results. The issue of "stone" radif should be online in two or three weeks.
In selecting and arranging poems for the February 2009 issue, I found I had a set of poems that, loosely at least, fit the Valentine's Day focus of the month. Joel Neubauer's poem is perhaps the most overt in this theme, but "Love and Work" and "Inside" definitely relate even if in unexpected ways. The editor's comments on this issue will fill out some of these ideas.
Please don't forget the "stone" radif challenge. I already have several entries and would like to see more.
The January issue opens the 2009 Ghazal Page with some fine ghazals. There are familiar names here and a newcomer as well. Further submissions of ghazals are welcome — and don't forget the current radif challenge.
Interested readers — for instance, seeking permission to reprint a poem — can always contact the poet through me.
This link takes you to the results of the color radif challenge. The twenty-six poems here show a range of effective responses to the challenge.
This link takes you to the current special issue, the results of the tercet challenge.
This link takes you to the index for the summer issue: June, July, and August 2009.