Learning How to Write a Ghazal from the American Blues

In this workshop, we will learn about the ghazal, the premier short form of poetry in the Middle East and South Asia. We will use a familiar American musical genre as a doorway to open into this great form of poetry: the blues. As it turns out, the American blues and the ghazal share a number of key thematic and structural elements that will help you to write a successful ghazal in English. For musical folk, learning to write the ghazal will make you a better blues writer as well! We will take a look at some terrific American ghazals by Aga Shahid Ali, Roger Sederat, and Patricia Smith. We will also listen to and discuss several blues songs. Lastly, we’ll have a guided writing session and round of sharing our work.

Tony Barnstone teaches at Whittier College and is the author of 23 books and a music CD. His new book of poems is Apocryphal Poems (Nirala Press, 2024). His other books of poetry include Pulp Sonnets; Beast in the Apartment; Buda en Llamas: Antología poética(bilingual); Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki; The Golem of Los Angeles; Sad Jazz: Sonnets; and Impure. He is also a translator or co-translator of world literature, primarily Chinese but also Spanish and Urdu. Among his awards are: The Poets Prize, the Strokestown International Prize, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, The John Ciardi Prize, The Benjamin Saltman Award, and fellowships from the NEA, NEH, and California Arts Council. He has also co-edited the anthologies Republic of Apples, Democracy of Oranges: New Eco-Poetry from China and the United States; Dead and Undead Poems; and Monster Verse. His new publications are a co-translation from the Urdu, Faces Hidden in the Dust: Selected Ghazals of Ghalib and a creativity tool, The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity. His forthcoming book is the critical study titled William Carlos Williams and Technological Modernism. He is currently working on a libretto for an opera. His website is https://www.whittier.edu/academics/english/barnstone.

Bilal Shaw is an American scientist who completed his Ph.D. and post-doctoral studies from the University of Southern California in Quantum Information Science. He studied mathematics at Whittier College, California. In the past he has worked on DNA-based computation, software architecture, and theoretical self-assembly. Currently he works as a senior-director of data-science in identity and fraud analytics at TransUnion. Prior to joining TransUnion, he worked as a data scientist at Headspace, OpenX, and ID Analytics which is now part of LexisNexis. When his mind isn’t occupied with thoughts of improving fraud models he likes to read, write, and translate poetry. With Tony Barnstone he recently published Faces Hidden in the Dust: Selected Ghazals of Ghalib (White Pine Press, 2022). Some of these ghazals have been published in Literary Matters, Able Muse, Arroyo Literary Review, and Pratik. Bilal’s published a new translation of Mir Taqi Mir’s Urdu ghazals The Plague of Love with Nirala Publications. He currently lives and works in Marina del Rey, California.

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