Link To One Of My Prose Pieces About Ghazals

The basic unit of writing in a ghazal is a couplet called a sher.  Here's a link to an essay I wrote on that subject for The Ghazal Page (subsequently re-published in Boxcar Poetry Review):  Satisfying The Ghazal Mind

Let's Ghazal! Ghazal Workshops With Tree Riesener

I'm available to lead workshops.  Each workshop includes a brief history of the ghazal and examples of different types of ghazals, including contemporary examples.  Each student begins by writing a ghazal in the traditional Persian form, with quaffiyah and radif and then may try a variation.  We will  finish each three-hour workshop by sharing what we have produced in our time together.  The cost of a three-hour workshop for ten students is $150.00 plus travel expenses.  If you have fewer than ten students, I'll work with you on the price. You will be pleasantly surprised by what fun it is to write these vigorous, loving, and altogether enchanting forms.

Wonderful Site About Ghazals

Once you start reading ghazals, you will probably reach a point where you would like to know more about the form.  This site, The Ghazal Page, run by Gino Peregrini, has wonderful examples of ghazals and many prose entries about the form (including one of mine). Gino posts different forms of ghazals, always with great explanatory notes.  Be sure to read Gino's Ghazal Blog.

The Format of a Ghazal

Ghazals are traditionally written in shers, or couplets.  I sometimes vary how I place the lines on a page.  My ghazals typically have very long lines, so in Liminalog, I have broken each line so that the poems are written in quatrains.  This example, "The Cup," from the book, has fit itself into the space available here on Blogger, coming out almost as blocks of prose.  Keep in mind that ghazals were originally set to music and form becomes a very manipulable decision.