I Wrote A New Poem---Check It Out!

Basketball Ghazal
by Luis C. Medina


Oh my goodness what a play, I said.
Can’t believe he drained that trey, I said.

When he got the ball I knew they’d win,
he’ll make that last second ‘J’, I said.

Like he had ice water in his veins,
that damn line is so cliché, I said.

High fives being exchanged everywhere,
smile on my face what a day, I said.

My dumb friend cheered for the other team,
it wasn’t their game Jose, I said.

After he made it the crowd went wild,
losers go home in dismay, I said.




Alright, so that's the poem I wrote last night. It's in the form of a ghazal (pronounced "huzzle") which was taught to me last week. A ghazal is a type of poem that originated in the 10th Century A.D. in Iran and it is made out of 5-12 couplets. The opening couplet is called the matla, where you can find the refrain of the poem which is called the radif---and it appears in both lines of the opening couplet and is repeated in the second line in the rest of the couplets. Before the refrain is the qafia, a rhyming word that comes before the radif but with no other words between the two. So, why would you write a ghazal? Because it each couplet is supposed to function as its own seperate poem. The ghazal is a form that embraces disunity. So basically if you got a lotta stuff on your mind, put it in a ghazal and see how it plays out.