May Poetry Café: Ghazals

Join us for our monthly Poetry Café in the Great Hall. Bring a poem to read (either one you’ve read or written), or come ready to listen to and enjoy poetry. There will not be an academic discussion on the pieces, rather time to celebrate and share the poetry that we love.

For May, we will write or read ghazals (pronounced “guzzles”),  an Arabic verse form often dealing with themes of self-reflection, grief, loss, or romantic love.

A ghazal has between 5 and 15 stanzas, and each stanza is a couplet. In the first couplet, both lines end with the same word called the radif and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet). The radif then becomes the last word of the second line of the rest of the couplets  and the last couplet includes a proper name, often the poet’s. Read these example ghazals here and here. You can refer to this article for a detailed history and and full list of the form’s rules. 

Wine and tea will be served. Please register below.

There is some debate on the origin of the phrase “Poetry Café.” Some argue it refers to the Modernists (Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, TS Eliot, etc.) sharing their work in the cafés in Europe. As spoken word poetry has gained traction and the genre of slam poetry has evolved, some trace the phrase to the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan. The café was founded in 1973 by Rutgers professor Miguel Algarín and gave Puerto Rican New York poets a place to meet and share their work. Although the café was closed for several years in the 1980’s, it continues to serve as an arts center for the Nuyorican community.