*The author’s name, Shahid, is mentioned in the last couplet. *The refrain “even the rain” is at the end of both lines in the first couplet, and also at the end of every couplet after that. *The bold words are the consistent rhyming words which come immediately before the refrain throughout the piece. No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.Īspects of this poem that make it a ghazal piece: They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these? To make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain. New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me – He would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain. He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves, To help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain. How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames – What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?Ī salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain. The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain. You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?Īfter the bones-those flowers-this was found in the urn: This is God’s site for a new house of executions? He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain. How did the Enemy love you-with earth? air? and fire? Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:Įxtract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.įor mixers, my love, you’d poured- what?-even the rain. ‘our glosses / wanting in this world’ ‘Can you remember?’Īnyone! ‘when we thought / the poets taught’ even the rain?Īfter we died-That was it!-God left us in the dark.Īnd as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.ĭrought was over. What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?īut he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain. A great ghazal poem is “Even the Rain” by acclaimed poet Agha Shahid Ali. It’s best to understand these rules through an example. The final couplet will usually include the poet’s signature, referring to the author in the first or third person. This would continue all the way through the poem.
Ghazals on line free#
So we might come up with “open my eyes and see the sky” or “unleash the heavens and free the sky”. We put a word with this “ee” sound immediately before our refrain (“the sky”) at the end of every couplet. This would give us a multitude of words to work with, like “see”, “bee”, “free”, “me”, and so on. For example, we might choose the “ee” sound as our rhyming sound. The word immediately before the refrain will rhyme all the way through the poem. So, in our example, every couplet will end with “the sky”. So each line in the first couplet will end with the words “the sky”.Įach couplet after that will repeat the refrain at the end of the second line. For example, the refrain might be the words “the sky”. In the opening couplet, both the first and second lines end with a refrain. Ghazals are usually between five and fifteen couplets, and follow several structural rules. Musicians like Ravi Shankar then adapted the ghazal into songs in the 1960s, thereby introducing them to the English-speaking world. Ghazal poetry originated in the 13th century with poets like Rumi and Hafiz. Each couplet should be distinct in its content and subject, but still connected in some way (for example, by theme or imagery). This lyrical poetry is written in couplets, unified by a consistent rhyme scheme. The ghazal is a Persian form of poetry which typically invokes themes of melancholy, love, and metaphysical questions.