What Goes Wrong When We Write Ghazals in English

Everybody likes ghazals. Or they bash erstwhile they larn what they are: A ghazal is simply a poetic signifier originating successful and powerfully associated with the Islamic taste sphere. It is simply a medieval thing—or what Westerners would telephone medieval. Many celebrated Persian poets are celebrated for their ghazals. Likewise, Arabic poets, Turkish, Urdu … The ready-to-hand examination is with the Italian sonnet. Ghazals are a batch similar that: opus length, rhyme heavy, tons of lovey-doveyness, tons of over-the-top cosmic reasoning.

It took everlastingly for modern English-language poets to prime up connected the beingness of the ghazal, but erstwhile the connection got out, plentifulness of astute radical started trying to constitute original ghazals successful English, with differing commitments to the ceremonial rules. I’m 1 of these poets.

This portion is astir translation, but it’s besides astir penning archetypal poesy successful one’s own language portion pursuing the rules developed for a antithetic language. I privation to speech astir English ghazals, but (for tons of bully reasons) I’m going to commencement successful near tract … with haiku.

You cognize each astir it. Three lines, seventeen syllables: 5 and 7 and five. Lots of people, that’s the 1 happening they know.

But inquire the editors of Modern Haiku what they deliberation of that. They volition say: naive. And definite enough, unfastened immoderate contented of Modern Haiku oregon immoderate different high-profile English-language haiku magazine. You won’t find immoderate five-seven-five.

See, radical who are superior astir the creation of haiku each cognize a Japanese syllable is not equivalent to an English syllable. This is due to the fact that English absolutely teems with one- and two-syllable words—and words of 5 oregon much syllables thin to travel disconnected arsenic supercalifragilistic. Meanwhile, five-syllable words in Japanese are perfectly commonplace.

English       Japanese

cuckoo         hototogisu

cricket          kirigirisu

And truthful on. Or enactment it this way: An English syllable tends to person more information in it than a Japanese syllable does. This is why, erstwhile you construe Japanese haiku connection for connection into English, you get mode less syllables, like

you occurrence burn
good happening volition show
snowball

This is wherefore I was taught that, alternatively of going by the numbers, you should travel the Japanese rule that’s astatine stake, which is utmost minimalism. If English had been the archetypal connection of the radical who invented haiku, the regularisation would person been three-five-three oregon possibly four-six-four. They would person considered five-seven-five excessively roomy. The conception down five-seven-five successful Japanese is that it leaves zero abstraction for filler. It forces parataxis.

There are different things that could beryllium said here. The antithetic presumption of stressed syllables successful English compared to Japanese, the smaller palette of vowel sounds successful Japanese—and truthful on. But each to say: These differences matter. The idiosyncratic who translates Bashō into an English five-seven-five is mistranslating. What happens—what has to hap successful bid to execute syllabic parity—is they construe the meaning and past adhd syllables to capable retired their five-seven-five. So you get a floobery haiku, which should beryllium a contradiction successful terms.

Ghazals—it’s a akin problem.

The regularisation says: Couplet aft couplet should extremity with the aforesaid connection oregon operation and with a rhyme dependable right before the repeated bit. Can this beryllium done successful English? Yes. But has nary 1 noticed that it’s an awkward mess when you bash it successful English? Could it beryllium that the grammar of English differs from the grammar of Urdu and Farsi and Arabic successful important ways, making it a atrocious thought to imitate the ceremonial specifications astatine the disbursal of the rule that animates them?

I’ll springiness an illustration successful a minute, but archetypal I’m going to accidental thing heavy and profoundly upsetting: Contrary to what you were told by teachers each your life, the ceremonial parameters of poesy are not arbitrary, are not rules for the involvement of rules, are not determination arsenic barbells for the writer to assistance to amusement however beardown she is. No, they are each designed to play to their languages’ strengths. They unafraid desirable effects—that is their warrant and their glory.

Because of the syntax of English, it is easy/graceful/elegant to commencement condemnation aft condemnation with the aforesaid word, but it is not easy/graceful/elegant to end sentence aft condemnation connected the aforesaid word. You upwind up ending connected immoderate anemic prepositional operation that you would ne'er beryllium tempted to deploy successful that way, but for the rule. You get nary pleasance penning it; the scholar has nary pleasance speechmaking it.

It should interest radical precise overmuch that if you construe Urdu ghazals into, say, English, simply repeating backmost successful English what the Urdu verses say, it is virtually ne'er the lawsuit that the words astatine the extremity of the Urdu strophes enactment astatine the extremity successful English. What does that archer you?

Look, you don’t person to larn Urdu to spot my point. All you request is to look astatine an Urdu ghazal transliterated into Roman letters. You will see the repeated phrase; you volition spot the rhymes. Let’s bash this.

Here is an authentic ghazal by my favourite twentieth-century Urdu poet, Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896–1982). Unless you talk Urdu, you’re not precise apt to person heard of this guy. That’s wherefore I picked him. I’m hoping idiosyncratic volition bash a caller translation of his poems. Here is my root text:

I emotion that photo. And present present is the ghazal, with the repeated operation successful italics and the rhymes successful bold:

Humnawa koi nahin hai woh chaman mujh ko diya,
Hum watan baat na samjhen woh watan mujh ko diya.

Muzhda-e-Kausar-o-Tasneem diya auron ko,
Shukar, bittersweet shukar, ghum-e-Gang-o-Jamun mujh ko diya.

Par farishton ko dieye tu ne, tau kya ghum iska,
Yahi kya kum hai, ke insaan ka chalan mujh ko diya.

Wahdat-e-aashiq-o-maashooq ki tasweer hoon main,
Nal ka eesaar, tau ikhlaas-e-Daman mujh ko diya.

Mil gaya tujhko jamaal-e-rukh-e-rangeen ka chaman,
Dil-e-sozaan ka yeh tapta hua bun mujh ko diya.

Khatam hai mujh pe ghazal-goi-e-daur-e-haazir,
Dene wale ne woh andaaz-e-sakhun mujh ko diya.

Shair-e-asar ki taqdeer na kuchh poochh Firaq,
Jo kahin ka bhi na rakhe woh fun mujh ko diya.

And, now, present is K. C. Kanda’s translation (2000), successful each item identical to the substance below; I person altered nothing:

I americium fixed specified a grove wherever fellow-warbler I’ve none,
Such a state is my location erstwhile nary understands my tongue.

To others you person held the committedness of the vino of paradise,
Thank God, to maine is fixed the grief of Ganga and Jamun.

If angels are endowed with wings, I’m unconcerned.
That you person made maine man, is my recompense.

The unity of emotion and quality lies successful maine condensed.
I incorporate the emotion of Nal arsenic good arsenic the troth of Daman.

To you is fixed a radiant face, garden-like abloom,
To maine is fixed a barren bosom that desert-like doth burn.

I correspond the eventual successful the tract of modern verse,
The benignant fixed to maine by God is the envy of everyone.

Ask maine not the poet’s destiny successful the modern age,
Thanks to my poetic gifts,—I person been undone!

I’m not saying that’s a large translation. But anyway, tin you identify, successful the English version, the operation that is repeated verbatim astatine the extremity of each Urdu couplet (“mujh ko diya”)?

It’s not casual to spot! Let’s spot what happens if we provender those 3 words done Google Translate:

مجھ
mujh = me

کو
ko = to

دیا
diya = given

It translates, roughly, to “to maine is given.”

Look astatine the poem again. Now you tin see: it’s portion of a verb construction, bound up successful a clump of idioms. No astonishment to find it astatine the extremity of the enactment successful the archetypal due to the fact that 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.

Are you starting to see? If English syntax allowed you to elegantly extremity sentences with the main verb, you could extremity your ghazal couplets with a much satisfactory connection oregon phrase. But, successful English, satisfactory endings thin to beryllium nouns. And if you extremity each couplet with the aforesaid noun, however are you going to get that ghazal dynamism, wherever each couplet becomes its ain thing, each charm connected the charm bracelet different?

I know, I know. I’m overstating. I’m acting similar each this is “always” erstwhile I should beryllium saying “most of the time.” Also, I’m needing you to spot maine that the Firaq poem instantiates a emblematic improvement successful Urdu ghazals.

I’ve been gazing astatine this worldly for 20 years, this full clip trying to fig retired however 1 could travel the tone of the ghazal form without getting shipwrecked by the IKEA instructions, truthful to speak. I’ll stock a mates ideas. In bid to bash the rhyme truthful that it’s subordinated (i.e., not allowed to enactment similar immoderate benignant of rhythmic extremity stop), you could bash thing I telephone “hand-off rhyme.” The past connection of enactment 1 (in a couplet) could rhyme with the archetypal connection successful enactment 2. Or, if not the archetypal word, astir the archetypal word. The rhyme volition inactive beryllium audible, but it volition tally by you the mode it does successful Urdu.

And since the repetition connection is truthful hard to instal astatine the extremity without messing everything up, what astir untying it from the extremity but making it a precise sticky-outty verb oregon adjective oregon adverb, specified that the scholar volition beryllium capable to acquisition it arsenic a repetition wide arsenic anything?

Let maine spot what happens if I retranslate the Firaq, above.

My information is simply a basal of trees, and I americium the lone songbird successful it.
The infinitesimal I sing, my information connected world is an uncomprehending stare.

It is for others to portion and to cherish the vino of Paradise.
The paradox is my information is to portion from these Hindu rivers.

If the angel’s information is simply a brace of wings, what is that to me?
You spot I’m contented that my information beryllium the signifier of a humble man.

… That’s not that bad. I’m stuck with repeating a noun, but the rhymes aren’t forced, and the verbal repetition is not lone respected, but made to deliver.

Anyhow, you tin chopped maine immoderate slack; these are improvisations. And if you’re reasoning portion sticks retired excessively much, past you truly are knowing my point. Firaq did not enactment a noun successful that slot, and possibly by this constituent you’re starting to spot why.

At immoderate rate, these are the questions the writer of an English ghazal should contemplate.

There’ a portion of maine that longs to punctuation immoderate prime specimens of archetypal English-language “ghazals” from respected nationalist magazines implicit these past 10 years oregon so, but that would beryllium similar erstwhile I amusement my students examples of rhyming couplets written by beginners. Every different line: godawful awkwardness. Every different line: words and phrases the writer would never person utilized successful a cardinal years, but they had to hustle that rhyme connection to the extremity of the line.

All this is bigger than ghazals, of course. Bigger than haiku. I’m saying we person to postgraduate from pastiche and mimicry to thing higher. We person to halt looking astatine idiosyncratic similar Firaq and saying, I indispensable bash what helium did. We should beryllium saying to ourselves, I indispensable bash what helium meant.

Firaq! you are bones, you are nary much to beryllium found. Yet, perceive to my words.
The birds successful the trees are asking that each this beryllium forgiven me.

 

Anthony Madrid’s penning has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Lana Turner Journal, and Poetry. He is the writer of 3 books, I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say, Try Never, and Whatever’s Forbidden the Wise.