Ghazal

What kind of imagery is used in this poem?

What do you notice about the end of each pair of

lines?

Background

• Mimi Khalvati is Persian; a ghazal is the name of a traditional Persian poem which uses couplets. (similar to sonnet)

• Traditionally about love and longing, just as this poem is

• This poem hints at an unrequited love

• A ghazal can be directed at God as well as a lover (has divine roots)

Structure• Made up entirely of couplets –

every second line of each couplet rhymes; individual thoughts

• mostly through repetition of the word “me”

• Focus on the word “me” reinforces that the love Mimi describes is unrequited.

• Each line has the same metre (pace)

Language• Lots and lots of natural imagery and

metaphors• Author pairs things that naturally go together

• Relationship between the things paired is often unequal; she describes her lover as being greater than her; she cannot live up

Theme• Romantic, unrequited love• Two lovers make up one whole• Love can transform a person• Receiving the love of another can make us

want to be better people• Power vs. powerlessness/femininity vs. male

dominance

If I am the grass and you the breeze, blow through me. alliteration

constant free-flowing

If I am the rose and you the bird, then woo me. constant free-flowing

Use of “if” suggests uncertainty; maybe there is no relationship

If you are the rhyme and I the refrain, don’t hangReferencing a poem within a poemon my lips, come and I’ll come too when you cue meShe is surrendering to his power

She is constant and dependent on other things; her lover is free to come and go as they want

If yours is the iron fist in the velvet glove defiance vs. softness

paradoxical/oxymoronic

when the arrow flies, the heart is pierced, tattoo me. he is Cupid, firing arrows at her permanence

If mine is the venomous tongue, the serpent’s tail,she may have a darkness inside her

charmer, use your charm, weave a spell and subdue me magical power of love requesting to be calmed

down; she is asking for her lover to control her

If I am the laurel leaf in your crown, you areShe is merely a leaf in his crown; unworthy of him

the arms around my bark, arms that never knew me.Alliteration unrequited; maybe he doesn’t even

know she loves him!

Oh would that I were bark! Wishes she were meaningful to him

So old and still in leaf.She feels young in his presence; but feels tired by this unrequited love

And you, dropping in my shade, dew to bedew me!She requires attention from him; a daily watering to survive

give wetness to

What shape should I take to marry your own, allit.Marry – literal meaning. Also; to pair, to match – she is willing to change herself to fit what he finds suitable. Not a strong sense of self.

have you – hawk to my shadow, moth to my flame – pursue me? a question mark indicates she does not think them getting together is possible

Can fly, is free; predator on the ground; undercover

If I rise in the east as you die in the west,Separated, opposites; cannot meet

die for my sake, my love, every night renew meMartyr for love?Would life her easier for

her if he were dead?

renew her passion but also the pain that they can’t be together

Could be sexual?

If, when it ends, we are just good friends, be my Friend,Relationship is imagined; she is so far ahead in her fantasy that she can even imagine them parting

Capitalisation intriguing; a special friend.

muse, lover and guide, Shamsuddin to my Rumi. an apprentice; wants to be taken under his wing

a Persian poet/mystic who invented the ghazal formBe heaven and earth to me and I’ll be twice the me I am, overwhelming indicates she is not enough; desperation

She wants to double her presence to be noticed by him

if only half the world you are to me.Ending line seems very contradictory; why is he only half the world now, when in the previous line he was heaven and earth to her? Hmm… is she talking herself out of this unrequited love at the end of it all?