Face of Memories

 

Thursday's picture prompt

FACE OF MEMORIES

From tot to teen to adult, now elder

Across time memories laced and held her

Cross countries and, finally, the global

Entered, opening doors to be more mobile

Overseas and lands dreamed of while younger

Facing adventures many, but yet a country hunger

Made possible only by patience and prayer

Eventually, a door opens with a key made of care

Majesty from high kindles the fire to ignite

Over years of dreaming, scenes burning bright

Rigorously living, watching the death of a dream

implode at the end a lifelong light-drawing beam

Etched deeply into psyche appearing on the face

Solace/hope rekindled through God's loving grace.

~PLMS/PCSS~3.6.2023

Ghazal Structure

A Ghazal is much more than just a poem. It is a short collection of shers that follow the rules of malta, mata, beer, kufiya, and radio.

AA, BA, CA, DA, EA, etc. A Ghazal consists of 5 - 15 rhyming couplets, each called a sher

Sher

A sher is a two-line poem. A notable feature of Ghazals is that each sher is an independent poem in itself and may or may not be of the same theme. In ‘Ghazals on Ghazals’, each of the couplets is called a sher, and in this particular instance, all of them are about Ghazals, but it is not necessarily for them to be on a single topic.

Beer

Beher is the length or meter of the shers. All the lines of a Ghazal must be of the same length. They can be short, medium, or long. In ‘Ghazals on Ghazals’, notice that both the lines of each sheet are the same beer. This holds true for the entire Ghazal.

Radif

In a Ghazal, the second line of each sher must end with the same word. This repeating word is known as the radio. In Hollander's Ghazal, the radio is at the end.’

Malta

It is a rule that the first tier of a Ghazal must contain the ‘radio’ in both lines. This first she is known as the malta. There can be more than one malta in a Ghazal, and in those instances, the second one is known as the malta-e-saran or husn-e-malta. In ‘Ghazals on Ghazals’, the first couplet or she is known as the malta because the radio ('at the end') is found in both sentences.

Kafiya

A Kafiya is the rhyming pattern of the words before the radio. In 'Ghazals on Ghazals’, the kafiya are ‘prime,’ ‘chime,’ ‘rhyme,’ ‘lime,’ ‘mime,’ ‘slime,’ ‘sublime,’ ‘thyme,’ ‘crime,’ ‘climb,’ ‘dime,’ ‘I’m,’ and ‘time.’ The kafiya may be perfect (lime v/s mime) or imperfect (prime v/s chime) rhyming words. In the above example, the kafiya includes both perfect and imperfect rhyming words.

Maqta

Every poet usually has a pen name (also called phallus), and generally, in the last sher of a Ghazal, the poet uses their pen name in the either first, second, or third person. In this example, the poet uses the pen name Quafia Radif. This last she is known as mata.

Initially, Ghazals were composed purely for religious reasons, but they later developed to include themes of love, Sufism, pain and longing. Ghazals gained prominence in the 14th century by poetry from the Persian Sufi mystics Rumi and Hafez. Some of the greatest Ghazal poets of all time are - Wali Mohammed Wali (classical), Altaf Hussain Hali (modernist), and Ada Jafri (contemporary) - who were well-renowned poets from the Arabic and Urdu culture.

Love in Ghazals does not just include factual human love affairs (ishq-e-magazine) but also the divine union or divine love (ishq-e-haqiqi). Ghazals on divine love are widely written. They are from the perspective of an unrequited lover whose beloved is used as a metaphor for God.

How to Write a GHAZAL

1. Decide on a topic that you want to write on. Bear in mind that you do have the choice of writing on multiple topics, with each sher/couplet concentrating on a particular topic (this is a unique feature of Ghazals).

2. Think of a line for the Ghazal; this should contain the refrain or the recurring word at the end. Make sure the recurring word is such that it can be used in the multiple lines that would follow.

3. Concentrate on the kufiya or the rhyming word that precedes the recurring word (radio). Write down a list of rhyming words. Try doing it alphabetically, as this will provide you with a range of words to choose from when structuring sentences.

4. Think of sentences that can end with the kaafirs and radio, i.e., the second sentence of each Sher.

5. Once you have a suitable opening line and the radio, your first she is ready.

6. Think of and write down another sentence that ends with the kufiya-radio. Then add a suitable preceding sentence. Together, these two sentences from the second couplet/she.

7. Repeat step 6 until you have a suitable number of couplets.

8. In the last couplet (mata), you may choose to use your name or pen name in a suitable manner.

Extracted from:

https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/.../literary-devices/ghazal/