Inspired by a set of photographs I have taken, I composed a poem exploring self-identity, touching upon my culture, values, and beliefs by loosely following a ghazal poetry format. While not all of the photographs may explicitly connect to my self-identity, certain aspects of it are reflected in my poem, whether it’s the idea of using photographs to my longing for being unbound by anything. I see the photos as inspiration for the atmosphere I want to consolidate in my poem, not as concrete objects I have to reference as they are meant to start my thinking process and be used as jumping boards to help me breach this expansive topic of self-identity. As a ghazal poem contains a constant repeating word – a radif – I found it meaningful to use a word that could boldly represent a huge part of my identity and is never-changing no matter how time flows by. A typical ghazal poem also contains couplets but in my rendition, I chose to use spaces to format my poem in such a way that makes you pause in between certain words or phrases to really emphasize that detail. The final couplet of a typical ghazal poem also references the poets themselves by name, and while I didn’t use my name, I chose a more implicit way of referencing myself as my name means twinkling bells in Chinese.

I also chose to loosely base off a ghazal format due to the fact that the couplets could stand alone in the whole of the poem, allowing me to pull off a multi-faceted exploration of my self-identity, where it encompasses my blind following towards my family’s religion, my love for photography to commemorate every moment, the philosophical questions that pop up often, to the way I lead my life. One specific poem that influenced mine is “Ghazal: Back Home” by Zeina Hashem Beck which has the repeating phrase “back home” and touches upon the various lives of Syrian refugees in each couplet and the different emotions felt for these refugees towards the phrase “back home” as it reminds them of good and bad memories. I loved the distinctly different atmosphere it created in each couplet, which helped encourage me to break out of my confined thinking to find more diverse methods to express my self-identity.

For the audience, I intend for them to be able to read my poem in three different ways which include reading it in its entirety, reading the couplets out of order, or only reading the phrases on the right that end with devotion. I hope it inspires in them, questions about their self-identity so that they can take the initiative to ruminate through their own values and culture slowly, and how they lived their life through these years to gain a deeper understanding of what makes them who they are.

Bibliography

1. “Tilt-A-Whirl Cheat Sheet of Repeating Forms.” Ablemuse, www.ablemuse.com/erato/archives/umbrellajournal/tiltawhirl/Whirl-About/CheatSheetofRepeatingForm.html. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.

2. Kidder, Hannah Lee. “What Is a Ghazal? The Essence of Emotion in Poetry.” NovelPad, novelpad.co/blog/what-is-a-ghazal. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.

3. Glatch, Sean. “Ghazal Poetry: How to Write a Ghazal Poem.” Writers.Com, 16 Apr. 2024, writers.com/how-to-write-a-ghazal-poem.