Poetry Friday: Ghazal for the Lake

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The Poetry Sisters challenge for this month was to write a ghazal. Challenge is the right word! I had a bit of a head start because the Inklings wrote ghazals back in 2021 and I had both the experience of juggling all the rules of ghazals AND an abandoned draft to work with. Good thing, because all the other drafts I started in the past week or so came to absolutely nothing…for now! Maybe the next time I tackle ghazals, one of those drafts will be just what I need!

In June, we will be writing in response to a quote. Pick your favorite and join us!

Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with this month:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas

Patricia has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reverie.

27 thoughts on “Poetry Friday: Ghazal for the Lake”

  1. I get a very peaceful feeling from your poem, Mary Lee. I’m not familiar with the Ghazal form, so thanks for expanding my knowledge – I’ll be investigating. For some reason I couldn’t find your post last week to comment, but I’d be happy to do a roundup if you still need help. Let me know what’s open.

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    1. Ooh – I had never heard of a ghazal, but found myself loving the repetition of the lake – and being taken there. And then I clicked though and read your 2021 poem (and was delighted by the cat theme – I have cats on my mind at present0 and then tried to make sense of the rules of ghazal and my brain hurt a bit, but I love the effect so maybe I will try one sometime!

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    2. Funny story about last week’s post. I got a reminder from a fellow blogger that it is almost time for roundup signups, and since I didn’t have any poetry last week, boom! I had a post! But then when I went to link it into the roundup, I realized that I was a month early! I started the signups with June, which we already have booked. I guess (20-20 hindsight) I could have just taken the June slots off and left it up, but instead, I’ll wait until mid-June and you’ll see that post again!

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  2. I love a ghazal! Your rhythmic lake gives me a settled feeling and I’m ready to sit right next to you and throw out a line. Hope this was inspired by a lake you love!

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  5. I wrote one in April, not so easy at all, but I love your immersion into what you love, Mary Lee, & that shout of “Not me”. Happy times!

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  6. Your repeated phrase works so well. It’s evocative of the way the lake is both central to your camp and experience of that particular biome — the lake makes itself the center, and won’t be ignored — as well as how the solitude and restoration of lakes in general is a large part of what makes you, you. This is lovely.

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  7. The details you include about the lake–paddle-splash, dragonflies, herons spearing fish, clouds reflected really put me there at the lake of my past. Well done! Difficult form!

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  8. My parents lived on a lake and your poem brought me back there. Not fly-fishing, though, but in every other way. “Sun haze over sycamore trees” my dad’s favorite tree.

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  9. This is just lovely, and I can clearly picture the generosity of the lake reflected in each glinting stanza. What I love best, though, is how you met the traditional requirement of mentioning yourself in the last stanza so beautifully, tenderly, and emphatically. Stellar.

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  10. Love this so much. I am imagining myself in a kayak. I love this these two lines:
    “Feather-spear heron blends into the bank
    of its liquid hunting ground — the lake.”

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  11. Mary Lee, your lake’s reflection is stunning and sublime. The reflection makes me want to sit by it for hours. I totally forgot about the #PoetryPals challenge but never tried a ghazel. Hopefully, I will have a few moments to write one.

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  12. Ta da! Proof that beautiful things take time. Love this ghazal with the repetition of the word, “lake.” It’s like the lapping of water. Wonderful.

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  14. The lake, the lake, the lake … the repetition sounds/feels like the peaceful lapping of water. Sigh.

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  16. Absolutely beautiful. The sensory details, the lovely, peaceful, serene feeling overall, and the contentment in solitude. I was right there with you!

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  19. I get such a strong sense of place from this poem, Mary Lee. I love that. And I can see you fishing on the bank! I love that this is how you inserted yourself into the poem.

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  20. I know nothing about ghazal, but I have noticed while reading everyone’s posts that some of you have ended every line with the same word, but this isn’t what you’ve done. Now, I must know more! I love the serene feeling of your ghazal. It makes me want to sit there with a book and watch you fly-fishing while the dragonflies buzz.

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  22. Using “the lake” as your refrain allows for all kinds of things to happen there in each strung-bead stanza, and yet so much DOESN’T happen here–how lovely and relaxed and quiet this poem is. We rode 55 miles each on Saturday and Sunday along the C&O Canal, the river itself a long necklace of beads. Maybe that will be my next ghazal! (I can work on it while my legs recover.)

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  23. Mary Lee…. the last line of this just did me in. I’m going to sit with this one for awhile. BEAUTIFUL.

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