What I learned today: Ghazal

Every once and a while there is something I learn that I like to share with people. This sometimes comes from class, sometimes from life, often times from others, and occasionally by accident. Sometimes the thing I learn is practical, sometimes its more of a philosophical musing. Today I will be discussing the ghazal*.

Due to poor weather conditions, my classes today were delayed until 10 a.m. This meant all classes before 10 a.m. were canceled, which meant I would be missing my poetry workshop. So imagine my surprise when I fund myself learning about poetry in another of my English classes.

Since we only used half of the class period, my instructor suggested we take the remaining time to try writing a ghazal. A ghazal is an Arabic form of poetry consisting of couplets. The first couplet must rhyme, and the second line of all subsequent couplets should end in the same word or phrase as the second line of the first couplet.

Confused yet? So was I, to add to the disarray each line of the ghazal needs to have the same number of syllables, and none of the couplets should relate to each other in any direct way. Fially in the last couplet of ghazal, the author should try and evoke their own name. I have to say, for all the struggles I have been having with poetry this semester, I rather enjoyed the exercise because it was like trying to solve a very difficult word problem. Here is my effort (and yes I realize the syllables aren't all the same, but they are very close):

I went out into the night
Saw the snow falling so white

The people here are so bland
Their skin is pasty, pale, and white

Fireworks light up the summer sky
Flags fly true red, blue and white

I put my pen to the page
Across blue lines and sheets of white

How can you tell Chris from Chris?
They all seem so blank and white

And that's what I learned today.

* it might also be "a" ghazal, I'm not really sure.