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Rick Barot - Want
Creative Writing Exercises
1. The first poem in Want is a ghazal. The form is an ancient Middle-Eastern form that has its roots in erotic love poetry. As you’ll see in my poem “Echo,” the form requires terminal couplets, with the last word in the second line repeating throughout. It is also customary to “hide” the poet’s name somewhere in the final couplet, as a final offering of the self to the beloved for whom the ghazal has been written. Another noteworthy aspect of the ghazal is that each couplet often has a discrete quality in relation to the other couplets. That is to say, each couplet has something like its own story or glimpse—sort of like a haiku—though all the couplets contribute to one final emotion. Write a ghazal.
2. The role of the visual arts is crucial to my life as a poet. I love photography, painting, video art, sculpture, mixed-media work. I believe that this passion for the visual arts has trained my eye to see the world better, in its nuances and its concreteness. Write a poem that carefully engages with a work of art. Describe the artwork in as much detail as you can, and then begin to tease out the intellectual or emotional meanings that the artwork embodies. I often make my students write this assignment using the sonnet form because it forces the writer to be economical and rigorous in his or her editing. Think of Rilke’s great sonnet, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” as a model.
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