Forms & Features with Samyak Shertok

“Do I contradict myself?” Whitman asks. “Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” Could there be a poetic form that is large enough to accommodate our self-contradictions, multitudes, and ever-evolving personalities? The ghazal, in Samyak Shertok’s opinion, is one such form. 

Agha Shahid Ali likens the ghazal to a necklace strung with “Ravishing DisUnities,” of which each stone is an autonomous couplet that shines in “vivid isolation.” And while describing each leg of the gazelle as “a gun / loaded with leaps,” Rilke might as well be referring to a ghazal couplet. At once playful and sincere, irreverent and sacred, regimented and malleable, the ghazal is a versatile, capacious, and enigmatic form. 

In this generative workshop, we will explore the ghazal’s history and form. Then, inspired by examples, we will write a communal ghazal followed by writing ghazals individually, in which we will flirt with, ignore, beg, provoke, argue with, surrender to, and resist “the beloved.”

This workshop is for participants aged 18 and older, of all backgrounds and experiences with reading and writing poetry.