Library Computer Lab--New Ideas from Double Bloom

Today is a good day to get your poems typed up.

Your two week poetry portfolio is due on Monday.

Handout: More ideas from Double Bloom. 
American ghazal, Free Verse Villanelle, Bestiary, Ordinary Objects, Blooming Personae,  Everyday Objects
Chant Poems

Ghazals

Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazal

Poets.org:  Heather McHugh  www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15452

The Ghazal page:   www.ghazalpage.net/2010/fall_schmottlach.html

• A ghazal is a series of couplets. Each couplet is an independent poem, although a thematic continuity may develop. This feature leads to "jumps" between couplets, a discontinuity similar to the linking in a Japanese renga. According to Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., what in English is a couplet is, in Persian, one long line with a strong caesura.
• Traditional themes that focus on romantic love and mysticism.
• Both lines of the first couplet (called the "matla") and the second line of each succeeding couplet have the same monorhyme ("qafia") and refrain ("radif").
• The refrain (radif) is the same word or short phrase (or even syllable, according to Ali).
• A. J. Arberry says that each couplet of the Persian ghazal ends in a monorhyme (words ending with the same vowel+consonant combination), but he does not mention the refrain.
• All the couplets are in the same meter. (Ali does not mention meter.)
• The poet "signs" the last couplet ("makhta") by including her/his name or pen name ("takhallus").

Ghazal (pronounced "ghuzzle") is an Arabic word that means "talking to women."

History.

The Ghazal was developed in Persia in the 10th century AD from the Arabic verse form qasida. It was brought to India with the Mogul invasion in the 12th century. The Ghazal tradition is currently practiced in Iran (Farsi), Pakistan (Urdu) and India (Urdu and Hindi). In India and Pakistan, Ghazals are set to music and have achieved commercial popularity as recordings and in movies. A number of American poets, including Adrienne Rich and W.S. Merwin, have written Ghazals, usually without the strict pattern of the traditional form.

Form.

A traditional Ghazal consists of five to fifteen couplets, typically seven. A refrain (a repeated word or phrase) appears at the end of both lines of the first couplet and at the end of the second line in each succeeding couplet. In addition, one or more words before the refrain are rhymes or partial rhymes. The lines should be of approximately the same length and meter. The poet may use the final couplet as a signature couplet, using his or her name in first, second or third person, and giving a more direct declaration of thought or feeling to the reader.

Style.

Each couplet should be a poem in itself, like a pearl in a necklace. There should not be continuous development of a subject from one couplet to the next through the poem. The refrain provides a link among the couplets, but they should be detachable, quotable, grammatical units. There should be an epigrammatic terseness, yet each couplet should be lyric and evocative.

For examples and more on Ghazals, see the anthology edited by Agha Shahid Ali: Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (Wesleyan University Press, 2000). Included are seven lovely Ghazals by William Matthews and a number of other fine ones.

---

History: did the form of the Ghazal influence the form of the Sonnet?

Editor's Postscript [JZ]: While composing the essay on the Sonnet, I asked Len if he thought the form of the Ghazal influenced the form of the Sonnet. His reply is helpful: "I have my doubts. I would guess that many other rhyming forms were common in Italy and elsewhere in Europe in the centuries before the 13th century. The Sonnet would then be a new variant of rhyming poetry. The Ghazal employs a repeated refrain preceded by a rhyme, not just a rhyme." Len illustrates the Ghazal's form with this layout, where "1R" represents the repeated refrain preceded by a rhyme; the other lines end with non-rhyme words, represented by "A," "B," and so on:

1R 1R A 1R B 1R C 1R etc.

Presentations/Pantoums and Senryu

 Presentations

Reminder about Bennington and other contests.
Reminder about retreat Nov. 14 at Ellison Park.

Go to this link:
www.mcsweeneys.net/quarterly/senryuandpantoums.html

HMWK: Bring in Poetry Writing books for Tuesday

A Note to Jack about Songwriting/Presentatons

www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/may/humphries/

ARTIST: Pat Humphries
TITLE: Swimming to the Other Side
Lyrics and Chords


[Capo 3]

{Refrain}
We are living 'neath the great Big Dipper
We are washed by the very same rain
We are swimming in the stream together
Some in power and some in pain
We can worship this ground we walk on
Cherishing the beings that we live beside
Loving spirits will live forever
We're all swimming to the other side

/ G D / Em G / C G / Em D / 1st, 2nd, 3rd / CD G D /

I am alone, and I am searching
Hungering for answers in my time
I am balanced at the brink of wisdom
I'm impatient to receive a sign
I move forward with my senses open
Imperfection, it be my crime
In humility I will listen
We're all swimming to the other side 

{Refrain}

On this journey through thoughts and feelings
Binding intuition, my head, my heart
I am gathering the tools together
I'm preparing to do my part
All of those who have come before me
Band together and be my guide
Loving lessons that I will follow
We're all swimming to the other side 

{Refrain}

When we get there we'll discover
All of the gifts we've been given to share
Have been with us since life's beginning
And we never noticed they were there
We can balance at the brink of wisdom
Never recognizing that we've arrived
Loving spirits will live together
We're all swimming to the other side 

{Refrain}

Villanelles

The form, according to Turco:

A1  (refrain)
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)

«

EXAMPLES:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

--Sylvia Plath

«

The Waking

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke

«

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing further, losing faster:
places and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

«

Villanelle for D.G.B.

Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.

--Marilyn Hacker

Presentations today and Thurs.

Student presentations for workshop.

Tuesday--Nautica, Lauren, Kadisha

Thursday--Meredith, Rachel, Amanda

With the remaining time, work on your final portfolio of poems, conference, workshop with peer, etc.

Jamilah/Molly Present/ Group workshops

2nd packet of poems due today.

Final portfolio due Thursday, Oct. 14

10 poems--at least 5 poems in final, typed, revised form;  other poems may be works in progress or "finished" poems, but should show attempts at exercises and prompts from class assignments and handouts.

Don't forget the textbook for more ideas for poems.

Sestinas

KNOW THE PATTERN. A sestina consists of six sestets (6-line stanzas) and one tercet (3-line stanzas). Each sestet contains the same 6 end-words, but in different a order for each stanza. The final stanza, the tercet, contains 2 "end-words" per line. Following is the pattern for the sestina ==> stanza 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6; stanza 2: 6,1,5,2,4,3; stanza 3: 3,6,4,1,2,5; stanza 4: 5,3,2,6,1,4; stanza 5: 4,5,1,3,6,2; stanza 6: 2,4,6,5,3,1; final stanza: 1&2,3&4,5&6.

2

CHOOSE YOUR 6 WORDS. When deciding on your 6 words, focus on versatility in terms of parts of speech, meaning, and usage. For example, the word "hand" can be a verb or a noun (as in the sentences "Hand me the towel" and "We shook hands," respectively.) "Hand" can be used in idioms (e.g. give me a hand, on the other hand). And finally, "hand" just has a plethora of definitions (e.g. a poker player's cards, a worker).

3

REVIEW & REVISE YOUR 6 WORDS. Are all of your words nouns? Are they all verbs? Do they seem to point to one specific subject matter you're planning to write about? If so, I'd suggest diversifying. Throw some adjectives in there; open a magazine or book, put your finger on the page, and write whatever word it lands on; or add a word that seems completely unrelated to the others.

4

ORGANIZE. Although it might seem tedious to organize ahead of time, it will save you from the grief that comes when realizing you've finally perfected your sestina, but you accidentally messed up the pattern in the third stanza, making the patterns in stanzas 4, 5, 6, and 7, also incorrect. So, on a piece of paper, make 3 columns. The first column is for the number pattern, the second is for the end-words, and the third is for your lines of poetry. If you are staring at a blank computer screen, make a table with 3 columns and 7 rows. Go to your TABLE panel or dropdown, click "Insert Table," and enter the number or columns and rows. (READ STEP 5 before writing the end-words down.)

5

WRITE. There are many ways to start a sestina, so experiment and find what is right for you. As for me, I like starting the first stanza without a particular order in mind for my 6 words. I just make sure one of the 6 words is at the end of each line. Only after writing that first stanza do I fill in my end-word column.

6

USE OTHER DEVICES. Don't let the end-words fool you; they are not necessarily the most important part of the sestina. Don't be afraid to repeat other words, too. This can actually draw some attention away from the end-words, adding a different type of rhythm and also warding off the dreaded monotony that can result from a sestina gone wrong. Enjambment can also create this effect.

7

BE FLEXIBLE. If you are accustomed to writing free verse, the sestina's constraints may seem to take away from what you want to say or what you're trying to do in your poem. However, I suggest that instead of not quite writing the poem you wanted to write, allow yourself to write a different poem than what you'd imagined when you began. There are many surprises to be found when writing in forms.

/

Morning News

by Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker

Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread   

and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,

repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.

A cinder-block wall shared by two houses

is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen

sink and a cupboard, on the other was

a bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs.

Glass is shattered across the photographs;

two half-circles of hardened pocket bread

sit on the cupboard. There provisionally was

shelter, a plastic truck under the branches

of a fig tree. A knife flashed in the kitchen,

merely dicing garlic. Engines of war

move inexorably toward certain houses

while citizens sit safe in other houses

reading the newspaper, whose photographs

make sanitized excuses for the war.

There are innumerable kinds of bread

brought up from bakeries, baked in the kitchen:

the date, the latitude, tell which one was

dropped by a child beneath the bloodied branches.

The uncontrolled and multifurcate branches

of possibility infiltrate houses’

walls, windowframes, ceilings. Where there was

a tower, a town: ash and burnt wires, a graph

on a distant computer screen. Elsewhere, a kitchen

table’s setting gapes, where children bred

to branch into new lives were culled for war.

Who wore this starched smocked cotton dress? Who wore

this jersey blazoned for the local branch

of the district soccer team? Who left this black bread

and this flat gold bread in their abandoned houses?

Whose father begged for mercy in the kitchen?

Whose memory will frame the photograph

and use the memory for what it was

never meant for by this girl, that old man, who was

caught on a ball field, near a window: war,

exhorted through the grief a photograph

revives. (Or was the team a covert branch

of a banned group; were maps drawn in the kitchen,

a bomb thrust in a hollowed loaf of bread?)

What did the old men pray for in their houses

of prayer, the teachers teach in schoolhouses

between blackouts and blasts, when each word was

flensed by new censure, books exchanged for bread,

both hostage to the happenstance of war?

Sometimes the only schoolroom is a kitchen.

Outside the window, black strokes on a graph

of broken glass, birds line up on bare branches.

“This letter curves, this one spreads its branches

like friends holding hands outside their houses.”

Was the lesson stopped by gunfire? Was

there panic, silence? Does a torn photograph

still gather children in the teacher’s kitchen?

Are they there meticulously learning war-

time lessons with the signs for house, book, bread?

Nahoma/Mary Presentations/power of the word--Lucille Clifton

1st period--Presentations, and video Lucille Clifton

Contests: Bennington,  NFAA, Blue Pencil Online, VSA, Scholastic

2nd Period: Work on poems for handing in on Thurs. 10/7  2-5 revised poems from exercises