Brian O’Sullivan: “I love the challenge of having each couplet work independently and in contrast to the others but still somehow attempting to give the ghazal as a whole a sense of composition and movement. (Getting feedback on Rattle’s Critique of the Week helped a lot with this.) However, what really resonated with me was hearing Karan Kapoor and Shannan Mann, on The Poetry Space_, discuss how ghazals give poets license to be irreverent, as we might in bawdy ballads or drinking songs, even while also making space for panoramic visions. I don’t know whether or not featuring beer being guzzled through a funnel is a little too irreverent—but if you’re reading this in Rattle, maybe it turned out to be just irreverent enough.” (web)
Megan Falley: “I started writing poems when I was a little girl—mostly in handmade Mother’s Day cards or valentines. I think most of my poems are still basically Mother’s Day cards and valentines, just dark, grittier ones that no one would ever want to receive.” (web)
Francisco Castro Videla: “There is not much to be said, the reason for my writing (I think) necessarily eludes me—but I can only state that words such as ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied’ (Matthew 5:6) and ‘Verily, God does not look at your shapes or wealth, but he looks at your hearts and actions’ (Muslim, Book 45, Hadith 42) should never be taken lightly.”
Mary Mclaughlin Slechta: “As I restored the soil of my city garden, each token of former human activity became a little mystery. I also thought a lot about the much abused Onondaga Lake we can almost see from the back window and the Onondaga land claim that embraces the lake as well as this poorly treated land. This poem is dedicated to all of us moved and removed, but mostly to the long, juicy worms that have wiggled back from who knows where.”
Chiwenite Onyekwelu: “I always loved reading ghazals, even though I had never written one. I loved that, somehow, ghazal poems seem to point the reader towards a particular word or words—thereby willing them to pay attention and remain in the present. This poem is my first-ever ghazal. I wrote it after one of my clinical rounds in the cancer ward as a pharmacy undergraduate. I saw a woman push back pain and fear and death, and when I came home, I knew I had to write this poem.” (web)
D.A. Gray: “Gus Walz’s outpouring of emotion during his father’s speech at the DNC convention touched a lot of hearts but it also caused many adults to reflect on the repressed emotions in their own experience, and to see a stark contrast in the choices facing us—fearless caring, or a culture of fear shaped by toxic masculinity.”
