How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #51: The Ghazal

An update from our fifty-first Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett

A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 26

Somewhat of a theme for this fall session, this week we focused on another example of form poetry: the ghazal. In a ghazal, we learned, the poem is written in an unlimited amount of couplets; each couplet is grammatically complete—there is no enjambment; each couplet ends on the same word or phrase; and, in the penultimate or ultimate couplet there will be a proper name, and often the poet refers to themselves. We read five ghazals:

• "Derecho Ghazal" by Luisa A. Igloria
• "That's My Heart Right There" by Willie Perdomo
• "Rain" by Kazim Ali
• "It Is with Words as It Is with People" by Anthony Madrid
• "Wight" by Stanley Plumly

The Challenge: Write your own ghazal.

The Participants: Benedetta, Alice, Allie, Emma, Anushka, Aditi, Arjun, Ella, Madeline, Russell, Savi, Tate, Penelope