“Ghazal for J,” “Ghazal for the Outsider,” and “Ghazal for Unbraiding” were published in the first installment of the new summer community folio from Tempered Steel, the literary and arts journal of Colorado State University Pueblo. The journal is now accepting submissions from residents of El Paso and Pueblo counties, along with submissions from students. I am thrilled to see my words on the first page of this special project.
The folio includes an author’s note about the three poems: “I’m generally against rules, especially in poetry, and I wrote exclusively free verse for most of my life. Then, about two years ago, I tried writing ghazals, sticking to all the classic rules of the form. Something mystical happened: it was so tough that my poems had to take unexpected turns, turns that revealed strange images and truths I would never have found otherwise. I was in love. I never looked back, and now I’m working on a whole book of them.
“‘Ghazal for J’ is for one of my oldest and dearest friends. ‘Ghazal for the Outsider’ follows the Sufi tradition of addressing the Divine or Unknown in the second person, as the beloved. And in ‘Ghazal for Unbraiding,’ I imagine the self dissolving in different moments, different ways, like love or beauty or pain or meditation. Like a braid, coming loose.”
Read the poems here: Tempered Steel Summer Community Folio
Brook Bhagat 