An Open House
An Open House - form Summary
Ghazal Form Frames Isolation
This poem is written as a ghazal, a sequence of compact, self-contained couplets. That form concentrates thought into aphoristic lines and sudden shifts, which suits the poem’s compressed meditation on solitude and paradox. By using discrete couplets, the poem presents desires for an “open house” and the bleak consequences of complete isolation as parallel, resonant statements rather than a single narrative. The ghazal’s brevity and fragmentation sharpen the irony: the envisioned freedom of solitude folds quickly into vulnerability and absence of care.
Read Complete AnalysesTo go and live in such a place where no one else should be, no one there to share one's thoughts no soul for company. One should build an open house, no walls nor doors to see, no neighbours to surround nor guards for security. If perchance one were to ail no one to remedy, and if one were to die no one to weep for thee.
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