The Art of the Ghazal

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Class

Decentering the Self: The Art of the Ghazal is a free workshop on the ghazal form of poetry taught by Maham Khan.

Learn about the history of the ghazal form of poetry, analyze examples, and learn to write your own in this free virtual class as part of our Amplify Projects series led by Maham Khan. In this workshop, we will first set out to ask ourselves: what is the ghazal? What are some words and ideas we associate with this poetic form? By sifting through the history of the ghazal and its contemporary iterations in English, we can chart a rich tradition that has always been defined by qualities of liberation and subversion. We will read essays and ghazals by Kazim Ali, Agha Shahid Ali, Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Fatimah Asghar and Adrienne Rich. Through discussions of land and culture, we will embark on the idea that if the ghazal decenters the poet/self, it can also destabilize the anthropocentric.

Click here to read Maham's reflection on creating and leading "Decentering the Self: The Arts of the Ghazal."