Gino's Ghazal Blog

The Whirl of Repeating Form

You may well be interested in a new web page devoted to poetic forms with strong repetition, such as the villanelle, pantoum, sestina — and, of course, the ghazal Kate Bernadette Benedict is host of Tilt-aWhirl: a Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms. There is also a "cheat sheat of repeating forms" to guide you in exploring forms that may  be new to you.

Give it a whirl: you'll be exhilarated!

The Lynx Leaps Three Times a Year

A new issue of Lynx (October 2009) is now online. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Lynx, it has been around for quite awhile, first as a print 'zine and then a Web 'zine. Its original focus was linking poetry, collaborative verse in the spirit of Japanese renga. If you google renga, you'll get some interesting hits. AHA Poetry, published of Lynx, is a good place to start investigating renga. Lynx retains an interest in collaborative poetry, which they now label "symbiotic" poetry.

I'm posting here about a new issue of Lynx because of their interest in, and support of, the ghazal. In fact, I first learned of ghazal form in Lynx, although I'd seen some of the early English ghazals  by poets such as Adrienne Rich, Jim Harrison, and Denise Levertov.

When you visit Lynx, click on "Solo Poems" in the left margin for a list of poems/poets. In this issue, you will find three ghazals by Steffen Horstmann, who has appeared in The Ghazal Page, and one by Ayat Ghanem. Another poet who has appeared in The Ghazal Page, C W Hawes, presents two haibun here.

My recommendation? Go to Lynx, read the poems, explore the AHA Poetry site, send them some of your own ghazals if you write them.

Farming Words

If you're not familiar with WordFarm, I recommend that you visit the site. I came to it looking for a book titled The Roswell Poems, by Rane Arroyo. I hadn't heard of Arroyo before, a measure both of how out-of-touch I am and how complex the contemporary American poetry scene is.

The front matter, including an introduction, and five poems are available on the site, downloadable in PDF format. The poems deal with the supposed crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Arroyo's poems are both documentary and expressive. That is, the poems both present precise images related to these events and also express resonses to the events.

Thus far, I've read only the five poems in the PDF file but have ordered the book. I'll post about it again when I've had a chance to read all the poems.

Mountain Songs

Looking for information on Red Pine (Bill Porter), I ran across Mountain Songs, a site devoted to Chinese poetry and sites in China associated with Chinese poetry — mountains, temples, and so on. This site is very attractive with lots of details, including photographs. There are numerous translations of many Chinese poets along with information on the poets and the translators, which the site calls "transpoets." I've not seen much of Mountain Songs yet but intend to revisit it soon and frequently.

Beginning with its introduction to English-speaking cultures by Arthur Waley and Ezra Pound, Chinese poetry has had a major influence on American poetry. Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder are two obvious examples of American poets strongly influenced by Chinese poetry.

Ezra Pound was and remains controversial due to his somewhat confusing political beliefs; his translations of Chinese poetry depended on Japanese glosses by Ernest Fenellosa. Pound's influence is of great importance and his best poetry is outstanding, whatever one thinks of his politics/economics or translations.