What Consists in the Ghazal Form ?

• Each couplet does not have to relate to the others, they are independently focused
• Ghazal poetry can be rearranged without damage to the writing- aka it would still make sense. This challenges the typically flow of poetry. (page 212 in “An Exaltation of Forms”)
• A narrator is not being created, rather, the repetitions create a story that doesn’t have a start and end point but has many indeterminacies, thus many points.
• Concerned with the counting of syllabi, not the stress of them
• Rhyme, refrain, and prosody are vital to the structure of ghazals
• Malta- opening couplet
• Qafia- rhyme scheme
• Radif- refrain
• Makhta- the signature couplet
• Prosody — sound or measure of speech
• Urdu meter- divides foot into sound units composed of long vowels and consonants.
• Ghazal was originally an oral form- works with the quantitative pattern.

The interactions within a ghazal poem is based on the form having each couplet being autonomous. Due to this, the couplets end up being independent of each other and allowing the author to freely write as they please. The way in which the ghazal is unified is based on every couplet ending the same. This allows the author to always bring the couplet back to a focal point. However, this may be frightening for some reader because, the poem can vary from couplet to couplet and make it harder to be analyzed.