The Habitual Poet Collaborative Ghazal Project
Over the past ten months Poemeleon has sporadically published a series of contributor interviews we have dubbed The Habitual Poet. At the end of each interview the poets were asked to contribute a sher, or self-contained couplet, that used the same kaafiyaa and radif, rhyme and refrain ("said the poet") to form a sort of loose, collaborative ghazal. In the spirit of an exquisite corpse we have assembled them here.
With the exception of one poet who explicitly claimed the matla -- the opening couplet -- the shers are in order of appearance in the Habitual Poet interviews. Strangely, as with the exquisite corpse exercise, there are mysteriously repeating images -- fruit, love, death, hunger, sewing -- that tie all of these disparate pieces together into a cohesive whole. While there was no specific request that interviewees not consult past interviews for ideas, I suspect that most (if not all) did not. So, is there some collective mind at work here? Or serendipity? Who knows!
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Alphabet The I Out: A Collaborative Ghazal
'I should go' means 'tell me to stay,' said the poet.
But don't listen to anything I say, said the poet.
Such a viscous blood-dew sunset, like the vicious scar across my heart.
Such bullshit. I should be in bed with my girlfriend, said the poet.
Perfect love casts out fear;
That's the only verse you need, said the poet.
We are out of red wine, he said. All we've got is Moet.
Then we'll loaf around eating caviar, said the poet.
Beloved, we are as two gazelles in starlight, said the poet.
The moon raised up her veil but would not wed the poet.
Cut a piece of your truth and with words like needles, sew it.
Then rip out the seams, tear it up. Start again, said the poet.
Some would reject your exotic fruit and say how to grow it,
when all they can raise are ordinary apples, said the poet.
And now, a poem in twenty sections, said the poet.
No wonder twenty stood and fled the poet.
Come, let us reconstruct our broken past, resurrect its road kills.
Though we die daily, we can write ourselves alive, said the poet.
A diligent minuet is the dance you covet?
Trade your Brahms for Luly, said the poet.
With all the world’s troubles, will anything from our time last? I doubt it.
Still, I was here, for a short time, and I wrote about it, said the poet.
Colorado/sky/world now become good bread.
Thus I'm either wise or fool, who knows, the poet said.
You asked if I've ever eaten strawberries in the snow.
That's a good question, and I don't know, said the poet.
The stomachs are fed up. The way the world is going
makes them sick, said the poet.
Paradise is jagged, Eden comes slowly, and we know it --
But peaches today at the farmers' market were lush with rain and summer, said the poet.
Love echoes—graffiti on an empty apple crate—
I won’t make this a poem, said the poet.
A drink of water is not a crow’s blather.
A crow’s blather will pave the way to heaven, said the poet.
The master declared: You must cross the river and dwell
where vultures restlessly wheel, Fred the Poet.
Squeeze blood-oranges in a tagine of tangerines and make them float
across my temples in the dusk of your sweetened smile, said the poet.
A hungry wolf loped back into the inglorious forest.
The lone hunter admitted he had not read the poet.
Hand dye the fabric, then cut and sew it,
or else observe, and write, said the poet.
I am sick as a dog. I am done for, said the poet
Be still, be quiet, said the doctor that bled the poet.
The poet’s always right, said the poet.
Poetry is my right, said the poet.
I wonder if there is a land of words
that one can pick off trees, something like birds, said the poet.
Not just bone and skin, but spirit:
Even words wear thin, said the poet.
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Habitual Poets who contributed to this collaborative ghazal, in order of appearance: Jessy Randall, Tony Barnstone, Jendi Reiter, Catherine Daly, Ann E. Michael, Christina Lovin (contributed two shers), Diane Seuss, Lucia Galloway, Janice D. Soderling, Barbara Crooker, Deborah Bogen, Jason Bredle, Charles Harper Webb, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Robert Krut, Grace Marie Grafton, Lesley Wheeler, Bridget Kelley-Lossada, Lynn Wagner, Carol Dorf, Kimberly Becker, Rachel Dacus, Patricia Fargnoli, and Michelle Estile.