Our featured participant today is Lady in Read Writes, where the response to Day Seven’s challenge to write about why you are not a particular piece of art brings me back to my own high school days (I actually had The Raven fully memorized back then, and can still recite large chunks of it. A good way to pass the time if you’re waiting at a bus stop . . . ).
Today’s featured resource is a bit silly: it’s the Museum of Bad Art. Now, bad art – like good – is in the eye of the beholder, and I rather like some of the paintings in the museum’s whimsical collection.
And now here’s today’s totally optional prompt!
The ghazal (pronounced kind of like “huzzle,” with a particularly husky “h” at the beginning) is a form that originates in Arabic poetry, and is often used for love poems. Ghazals commonly consist of five to fifteen couplets that are independent from each other but are nonetheless linked abstractly in their theme; and more concretely by their form. And what is that form? In English ghazals, the usual constraints are that:
- the lines all have to be of around the same length (though formal meter/syllable-counts are not employed); and
- both lines of the first couplet end on the same word or words, which then form a refrain that is echoed at the end of each succeeding couplet.
Want an example? Try Patricia Smith’s “Hip-Hop Ghazal.”
Now try writing your own ghazal that takes the form of a love song – however you want to define that. Observe the conventions of the repeated word, including your own name (or a reference to yourself) and having the stanzas present independent thoughts along a single theme – a meditation, not a story.
Ghazal: A Love in Revolt
I love fiercely, unbound by rules in revolt
A heart ablaze with justice, burning in revolt
A silent protest whispered with each breath,
Dark alleys of desire and defiance in revolt
The fragrance of power, sweet as forbidden wine,
Where longing meets uprising, ever in revolt
Midnight confessions echoing through chains of law,
Passion shattering history’s fortress in revolt
A rebellion etched in verse, keen as a sharpened blade,
Carrying secrets of subversion, dancing in revolt
I pen my fate in the open—a woman of storm and art, Oizys,
Finding love in every fractured promise still in revolt
Ghazal: Ik Ishq ki Bagawat Main
Main bekhauf ishq karti hoon, qayde se bekhabar, Bagawat main
Nyay ki aag main ek jalta dil, Bagawat main
Har saans main sunehri khamoshi ka vidroh hai,
Ishq aur zid ki andheri galiyon main, Bagawat main
Taqat ki mehak, mana ki madira si meethi,
Jahan tamanna se uthti hai bagawat ki hawa, Bagawat main
Aadhi raat ki ikrarat, qanoon ki janjeeron main goonjte,
Hayat ke deewarein cheerata junoon, Bagawat main
Shayrana vidroh ki lakeeren, dhaardaar talwaar si tez,
Raaz-e-takhti ko chhupaye, nrutya karta dil, Bagawat main
Main likhti apni taqdeer—toofani ek aurat, Oizys,
Har toote vaade main dhoondhti ishq, abhi bhi Bagawat main
- Oizys.
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