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Unread 05-14-2022, 07:25 AM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is online now
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Iowa City, IA, USA
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I think of each poetic form as a key. They open up different doors. So when a new form is invented or passed from its original inventor or culture to the world at large, new doors are opened. Sometimes the wider culture does not understand the meaning of the key to the original culture, so it cannot unlock the same doors. What happened with the ghazal when it first was popularized was unfortunate, but I don't think that that means that people should stop writing ghazals. They are a key to understanding and respecting the original culture, too. I think people pay much more attention to Near Eastern cultures when they understand and appreciate their literatures, and they won't do so if the literatures are unavailable to them because the poetic forms of that culture are not understood or known. Any form can be used in multiple ways, and all forms will be used badly, as well as brilliantly. But I am on the side of broadening access and understanding, not telling people "you will never understand, so don't even try."

Susan
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