Couplets and Ghazals

En Francais

Couplets appeared in the 18th century in the form of rhyming pairs of lines called heroic couplets. For example:
That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
--Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess

Browning’s poem, though more ironic than a traditional 18th Century poem, shows the rhyme scheme and the lack of stanza breaks that we now think of as a poem in couplets. In addition to the aa/bb/cc/dd rhyme scheme, heroic couplets also make use of iambic pentameter. They also tend to be compressed and intense with a large impact being captured in a relatively small space.

There are three kinds of couplets: the heroic, as introduced above; the closed; and the open couplet. In the closed couplet, the idea or image as well as the sentence is complete. There may be enjambment—a line that ends without punctuation and runs into the next line—between lines in the couplet, but one couplet does not enjamb into another. An open couplet is the opposite of this: the sense or meaning of the poem may be carried from one couplet into the next, allowing for more intertwined couplets. It’s perfectly acceptable to combine couplets that are open and closed in a single poem. It is also common to see the aa/bb/cc rhyme scheme with the couplets being open or closed and broken into couplet-stanzas. Contemporary poems written in couplets often don’t use end-rhyme.

Writing 1: Short Imitation
Are you weary, alder tree,
in this, the age of rain? (Kathleen Jamie, “Alder”)

Have students write out this couplet, then ask them to write their own, copying the length of the lines and the position of punctuation, including asking a question of something in nature.

For example: Traffic noise, the constant hum,
old oak, does it deafen? (Yvonne Blomer)

Writing 2: Closed Couplets
Have students write a couplet a day from the same position, for example, looking out their kitchen window, or the view from their desk. If they write one a day for a week, they have a series of closed couplets that can easily be linked together. To help them along, suggest they think of a season or an object in nature to write about each day. Students could make use of rhyme, but if the class gets silly, as it can, I would suggest stopping any rhyme, especially end-line rhyme.

Writing 3: Open Couplets
Have the students write four to six open couplets. I don’t mean for them to write one long sentence with only a period at the end. They may end a sentence in the middle of the line or at any point in a couplet linked to the previous one. Here is an example from Lorna Crozier’s selected poems The Blue Hour of the Day:

Falling In Love
The worst thing about
a horse bite is the horse

can’t change his mind,
can’t open his mouth,

release the flesh
until his jaws clamp shut.

Once the pain starts
you know it has to

get worse before
it stops.

Though I am calling this a poem of open couplets, many of the couplets are end-stopped with a comma and one with a period. Though the meaning ends, the couplet is still linked to the one before it. The meaning and syntax all run into a single idea making it a poem of open couplets.

The ghazal is a Persian form of poetry in couplets. In its formal rendition it makes use of a refrain, rhyme, and closed couplets of similar metre so that the lines are all of a similar length. North American ghazals tend to favour the leaping non-linear and non-narrative aspects of the form while leaving the end-rhyme and refrain out of the poem. Often the subject matter of ghazals is love, both physical and mystical. Canadian poet John Thompson is responsible for bringing the ghazal to Canada. Phyllis Webb, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, and many other Canadian poets have written in the form.

Ghazals, like sonnets, have an essence to them that is characterised by the non-narrative structure, the leaping, thinking, imagism of the couplets. Here are the first four couplets from Ghazal XXI by John Thompson, taken from his posthumously published book Stilt Jack:

I know how small a poem can be:
the point on a fish hook;
women have one word or too many:
I watch the wind;
I'd like a kestrel's eye and know
how to hang on one thread of sky;
the sun burns up my book:
it must be all lies;

Technically, ghazals should consist of closed couplets, but many, if not most, western ghazals make use of enjambment to open the couplets and allow for multiple meanings in lines.

Writing 4: Ghazals
Have students write a ghazal from five to 10 couplets in length. The important part of ghazal-essence is leaping. Suggest short sentences, no narrative or story, but images and metaphors are very important. Remind them to pay attention to word choice, images, tightness of language, and concrete details.

The parts of a sentence that hold the information together are not necessary in this form. The mind will add the images up into a coherent whole or even a story.

Suggested reading: Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve, Ed. In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry, Polestar: Vancouver, 2005
Lorna Crozier, Bones in Their Wings: Ghazals, Hagios Press: Regina, 2003

Yvonne Blomer's poetry has won awards and been published internationally in such journals as Seam, The Rialto, Grain and The Antigonish Review in addition to being in The Best of Canadian Poetry in English published by Tightrope Books and in Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry published by Mother Tongue Publishing Ltd. Yvonne gained an MA in Poetry from The University of East Anglia in 2006. Her first book, a broken mirror, fallen leaf was short listed for The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.