{"id":171100,"date":"2025-06-24T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=171100"},"modified":"2025-06-26T07:40:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T11:40:42","slug":"what-goes-wrong-when-we-write-ghazals-in-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/06\/24\/what-goes-wrong-when-we-write-ghazals-in-english\/","title":{"rendered":"What Goes Wrong When We Write Ghazals in English"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Bradford Johnson, Auto Arborescent (Blue)<\/em>. From the portfolio<\/a> Photographs of Past Paintings<\/em>, which appeared in issue no. 168 of The Paris Review<\/em> (Winter 2003).<\/p><\/div>\n

Everybody likes ghazals. Or they do when they learn what they are: A ghazal is a poetic form originating in and strongly associated with the Islamic cultural sphere. It is a medieval thing\u2014or what Westerners would call medieval. Many famous Persian poets are famous for their ghazals. Likewise, Arabic poets, Turkish, Urdu \u2026 The ready-to-hand comparison is with the Italian sonnet. Ghazals are a lot like that: song length, rhyme heavy, lots of lovey-doveyness, lots of over-the-top cosmic reasoning.<\/p>\n

It took forever for modern English-language poets to pick up on the existence of the\u00a0ghazal, but once the word got out, plenty of smart people started trying to write original\u00a0ghazals in English, with differing commitments to the formal rules. I\u2019m one of these poets.<\/p>\n

This piece is about translation, but it\u2019s also about writing original poetry in one\u2019s\u00a0own\u00a0language while following the rules developed for a different language. I want to talk about English\u00a0ghazals, but (for lots of good reasons) I\u2019m going to start in left field \u2026 with haiku.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You know all about it. Three lines, seventeen syllables: five and seven and five. Lots of people, that\u2019s the one thing they know.<\/p>\n

But ask the editors of\u00a0Modern Haiku<\/em>\u00a0what they think of that. They will say:\u00a0naive<\/em>. And sure enough, open any issue of\u00a0Modern Haiku<\/em> or any other high-profile English-language haiku magazine. You won\u2019t find any five-seven-five.<\/p>\n

See, people who are serious about the art of haiku all know a Japanese syllable is not equivalent to an English syllable. This is because English absolutely\u00a0teems\u00a0with one- and two-syllable words\u2014and words of five or more syllables tend to come off as supercalifragilistic. Meanwhile, five-syllable words in\u00a0Japanese\u00a0are perfectly commonplace.<\/p>\n

\n

English\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Japanese<\/strong><\/p>\n

cuckoo\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0hototogisu<\/p>\n

cricket\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0kirigirisu<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And so on. Or put it this way: An English syllable tends to have more\u00a0information\u00a0in it than a Japanese syllable does. This is why, when you translate Japanese haiku word for word into English, you get way fewer syllables, like<\/p>\n

you fire burn
\ngood thing will show
\nsnowball<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is why I was taught that, instead of going by the numbers, you should follow the Japanese principle that\u2019s at stake, which is extreme minimalism. If English had been the first language of the people who invented haiku, the rule would have been three-five-three or maybe four-six-four. They would have considered five-seven-five too roomy. The concept behind five-seven-five in Japanese is that it leaves zero space for filler. It forces parataxis.<\/p>\n

There are other things that could be said here. The different status of stressed syllables in English compared to Japanese, the smaller palette of vowel sounds in Japanese\u2014and so on. But all to say: These differences matter. The person who translates Bash\u014d into an English five-seven-five is mistranslating. What happens\u2014what has to happen in order to achieve syllabic parity\u2014is they translate the meaning and then add syllables to fill out their five-seven-five. So you get a floobery<\/em>\u00a0haiku, which should be a contradiction in terms.<\/p>\n

Ghazals\u2014it\u2019s a similar problem.<\/p>\n

The rule says: Couplet after couplet should end with the same word or phrase and with a rhyme sound right\u00a0before the repeated bit. Can this be done in English? Yes. But has no one noticed that it\u2019s an awkward\u00a0mess\u00a0when you do it in English? Could it be that the grammar of English differs from the grammar of Urdu and Farsi and Arabic in important ways, making it a bad idea to imitate the formal specifications at the expense of the principle that animates them?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give an example in a minute, but first I\u2019m going to say something deep and deeply upsetting:\u00a0Contrary to what you were told by teachers all your life, the formal parameters of poetry are not arbitrary, are not rules for the sake of rules, are not there as barbells for the poet to lift to show how strong she is. No, they are all designed to play to their languages\u2019 strengths. They secure desirable effects\u2014that is their warrant and their glory.<\/p>\n

Because of the syntax of English, it is easy\/graceful\/elegant to start sentence after sentence with the same word, but it is not easy\/graceful\/elegant to\u00a0end\u00a0sentence after sentence on the same word. You wind up ending on some weak prepositional phrase that you would never be tempted to deploy in that way, except for the rule. You get no pleasure writing it; the reader has no pleasure reading it.<\/p>\n

It should worry people very much that if you translate Urdu\u00a0ghazals into, say, English, simply repeating back in English what the Urdu verses\u00a0say, it is virtually never the case that the words at the end of the Urdu strophes stay at the end in English. What does that tell you?<\/p>\n

Look, you don\u2019t have to learn Urdu to see my point. All you need is to look at an Urdu\u00a0ghazal\u00a0transliterated into Roman letters. You will\u00a0see<\/em>\u00a0the repeated phrase; you will see the rhymes. Let\u2019s do this.<\/p>\n

Here is an authentic\u00a0ghazal\u00a0by my favorite twentieth-century Urdu poet, Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896\u20131982). Unless you speak Urdu, you\u2019re not very likely to have heard of this guy. That\u2019s why I picked him. I\u2019m hoping somebody will do a new translation of his poems. Here is my source text:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photograph courtesy of Anthony Madrid.<\/p><\/div>\n

I love that photo. And now here is the ghazal, with the repeated phrase in italics and the rhymes in bold:<\/p>\n

Humnawa koi nahin hai woh chaman\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>,<\/em>
\nHum watan baat na samjhen woh\u00a0watan<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya.<\/em><\/p>\n

Muzhda-e-Kausar-o-Tasneem diya auron ko,
\nShukar, sad shukar, ghum-e-Gang-o-Jamun<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Par farishton ko dieye tu ne, tau kya ghum iska,
\nYahi kya kum hai, ke insaan ka\u00a0chalan<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wahdat-e-aashiq-o-maashooq ki tasweer hoon main,
\nNal ka eesaar, tau ikhlaas-e-Daman<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mil gaya tujhko jamaal-e-rukh-e-rangeen ka chaman,
\nDil-e-sozaan ka yeh tapta hua\u00a0bun<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Khatam hai mujh pe\u00a0ghazal-goi-e-daur-e-haazir,
\nDene wale ne woh andaaz-e-sakhun<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shair-e-asar ki taqdeer na kuchh poochh Firaq,
\nJo kahin ka bhi na rakhe woh\u00a0fun<\/strong>\u00a0mujh ko diya<\/em>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, now, here is K. C. Kanda\u2019s translation (2000), in every detail identical to the text below; I have altered nothing:<\/p>\n

I am given such a grove where fellow-warbler I\u2019ve none,
\nSuch a country is my home when none understands my tongue.<\/p>\n

To others you have held the promise of the wine of paradise,
\nThank God, to me is given the grief of Ganga and Jamun.<\/p>\n

If angels are endowed with wings, I\u2019m unconcerned.
\nThat you have made me man, is my recompense.<\/p>\n

The unity of love and beauty lies in me condensed.
\nI contain the love of Nal as well as the troth of Daman.<\/p>\n

To you is given a radiant face, garden-like abloom,
\nTo me is given a barren heart that desert-like doth burn.<\/p>\n

I represent the ultimate in the field of modern verse,
\nThe style given to me by God is the envy of everyone.<\/p>\n

Ask me not the poet\u2019s fate in the modern age,
\nThanks to my poetic gifts,\u2014I have been undone!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s a great translation. But anyway, can you identify, in the English version, the phrase that is repeated verbatim at the end of every Urdu couplet (\u201cmujh ko diya\u201d)?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to spot! Let\u2019s see what happens if we feed those three words through Google Translate:<\/p>\n

\u0645\u062c\u06be
\nmujh<\/em>\u00a0= me<\/p>\n

\u06a9\u0648
\nko<\/em>\u00a0= to<\/p>\n

\u062f\u06cc\u0627
\ndiya<\/em>\u00a0= given<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It translates, roughly, to \u201cto me is given.\u201d<\/p>\n

Look at the poem again. Now you can see: it\u2019s part of a verb construction, bound up in a bunch of idioms. No surprise to find it at the end of the line in the original because Urdu is an S-O-V (subject-object-verb) language. English, unfortunately, is S-V-O. Which means: When it goes into English, that V has got to move.<\/p>\n

Are you starting to see? If English syntax allowed you to elegantly end sentences with the main verb, you could end your\u00a0ghazal\u00a0couplets with a more satisfactory word or phrase. But, in English, satisfactory endings tend to be nouns. And if you end every couplet with the same noun, how are you going to get that\u00a0ghazal\u00a0dynamism, where each couplet becomes its own thing, every charm on the charm bracelet different?<\/p>\n

I know, I know. I\u2019m overstating. I\u2019m acting like all this is \u201calways\u201d when I should be saying \u201cmost of the time.\u201d Also, I\u2019m needing you to trust me that the Firaq poem instantiates a typical phenomenon in Urdu\u00a0ghazals.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been gazing at this stuff for twenty years, this whole time trying to figure out how one could follow the spirit of the\u00a0ghazal\u00a0form without getting shipwrecked by the IKEA instructions, so to speak. I\u2019ll share a couple ideas. In order to do the rhyme so that it\u2019s subordinated (i.e., not allowed to act like any kind of rhythmic end stop), you could do something I call \u201chand-off rhyme.\u201d The last word of line 1 (in a couplet) could rhyme with the first word in line 2. Or, if not the first word, almost the first word. The rhyme will still be audible, but it will run by you the way it does in Urdu.<\/p>\n

And since the repeat word is so hard to install at the end without messing everything up, what about untying it from the end but making it a very sticky-outty verb or adjective or adverb, such that the reader will be able to experience it as a repetition clear as anything?<\/p>\n

Let me see what happens if I retranslate the Firaq, above.<\/p>\n

My portion is a stand of trees, and I am the only songbird in it.
\nThe minute I sing, my portion on earth is an uncomprehending stare.<\/p>\n

It is for others to drink and to cherish the wine of Paradise.
\nThe paradox is my portion is to drink from these Hindu rivers.<\/p>\n

If the angel\u2019s portion is a pair of wings, what is that to me?
\nYou see I\u2019m content that my portion be the shape of a humble man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026 That\u2019s not that bad. I\u2019m stuck with repeating a noun, but the rhymes aren\u2019t forced, and the verbal repetition is not only respected, but made to deliver.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, you can cut me some slack; these are improvisations. And if you\u2019re thinking portion<\/em> sticks out too much, then you really are understanding my point. Firaq did not put a noun in that slot, and maybe by this point you\u2019re starting to see why.<\/p>\n

At any rate, these are the questions the writer of an English\u00a0ghazal\u00a0should contemplate.<\/p>\n

There\u2019 a part of me that longs to quote some choice specimens of original English-language \u201cghazals\u201d from respected national magazines over these past ten years or so, but that would be like when I show my students examples of rhyming couplets written by beginners. Every other line: godawful awkwardness. Every other line: words and phrases the poet would\u00a0never<\/em> have used in a million years, except they had to hustle that rhyme word to the end of the line.<\/p>\n

All this is bigger than ghazals, of course. Bigger than haiku. I\u2019m saying we have to graduate from pastiche and mimicry to something higher. We have to stop looking at somebody like Firaq and saying, I must do what he did. We should be saying to ourselves, I must do what he meant<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Firaq! you are bones, you are no more to be found. Yet, listen to my words.
\nThe birds in the trees are asking that all this be forgiven me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anthony Madrid’s writing has appeared in<\/em> The Best American Poetry<\/em>, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Lana Turner Journal, and\u00a0<\/em>Poetry. He is the author of three books, <\/em>I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say, Try Never, and<\/em> Whatever\u2019s Forbidden the Wise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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