Week 123, 231 students served: “Ghazal” by Reginald Dwayne Betts: Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating

September 28 I am Zooming into two jails with this worksheet--tomorrow I'm delivering books and notebooks and folders and dictionaries to the jail but people don't always have their stuff with them so I'm putting the text of the poem in the worksheets. We have been using old worksheets for a while, going through the summer, but now we will be on Week 123--224 students served so far, we will see how many new ones show up Tuesday!

 “Ghazal” by Reginald Dwayne Betts: Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating

Today we are reading the first poem in Felon, “Ghazal,” on page 1. 

to annotate: to make notes on something to help you understand it better

to summarize: to put something in your own words

to analyze: to consider a question on the text, providing supporting examples from the text

to imitate: to create an original piece of writing based on something you have read

Exercise: Read and annotate

1. Read the poem out loud and underline any words you need to look up

2. Write any questions you have in the margins, the white space on the page

3. Put tricky parts into your own words in notes in the margins, the white space on the page

GHAZAL

Name a song that tells a man what to expect after prison;

Explains Occam’s razor: you’re still a suspect after prison.

Titus Kaphar painted my portrait, then dipped it in black tar.

He knows redaction is a dialect after prison.

From inside a cell, the night sky isn’t the measure—

that’s why it’s prison’s vastness your eyes reflect after prison.

My lover don’t believe in my sadness. She says whisky,

not time, is what left me wrecked after prison.

Ruth, Papermaker, take these tattered gray sweats.

Make paper of my bid: a past I won’t reject after prison.

The state murdered Kalief with a single high bail.

Always innocent. Did he fear time’s effect after prison?

Dear Warden, my time been served, let me go,

Promise that some of this I won’t recollect—after prison.

My mother has died. My father, a brother & two cousins.

There is no G-d; no reason to genuflect, after prison.

Jeremy and Forest rejected the template, said for

it to be funky, the font must redact after prison.

He came home saying righteous, coochie, & jive turkey.

All them lost years, his slang’s architect after prison.

The Printer silkscreens a world onto black paper.

With ink, Erik reveals what we neglect after prison.

My homeboy say he’s done with all that prison shit.

His wife & baby girl gave him love to protect after prison.

Them fools say you can become anything when it’s over.

Told ’em straight up, ain’t nothing to resurrect after prison.

You have come so far, Beloved, & for what, another song?

Then sing. Shahid you’re loved, not shipwrecked, after prison.

©2019 by Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Felon, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

Optional Exercise: Questions for Comprehension

1. “Occam’s razor” is the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. What do you think it means in the first couplet? There are a lot of ways to think about this, so don’t worry that there’s ONE right answer you have to figure out—there isn’t!

2. "Redaction" is when you cut or blot something out, so no one can see what it was. Titus Kaphar is the artist who made the tar-dipped portraits of incarcerated men on the cover of Felon. Here’s an explanation from the website of the museum that exhibited the work:

“After completing the portraits, Kaphar submerged a portion of each panel in tar; initially the tar-covered area corresponded to the percentage of his life that each subject had spent in prison. Kaphar abandoned the formula after considering the countless consequences of imprisonment for the men’s lives, even after their release. In his later panels, Kaphar began with his original equation and extended the tar at least up to the mouth, representing the silencing of the incarcerated men, who were stripped of many rights, including the right to vote and access to federally funded programs in many states. The tar also serves to obscure the men’s faces and provides a kind of privacy not afforded to them on the mug shot websites, which are part of the public record.” (https://studiomuseum.org/exhibition/titus-kaphar-jerome-project).

What do you think Betts means when he says Kaphar “knows redaction is a dialect after prison” (1)? 

Optional Exercise: Summarize the poem

Write a paragraph summarizing the poem with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page

example summary, incorporating quotation and in-text citation: 

Reginald Dwayne Betts' poem "Ghazal" uses the ghazal form: couplets that each end in a rhyming word (suspect, dialect, reflect)  followed by a repeated word or phrase (after prison). Each of the couplets examins a different facet of life after prison, including what “your eyes reflect,” family you lose, how others have experienced the change (Betts 1). 

Work Cited Page 

Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Felon. W. W. Norton and Company 2020 

Optional Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: What do you think counts as "sanity" for this speaker? Use quotation and summary to support your answer.  

Optional Exercise: Imitation

1. Write your own couplet that would fit in this poem, using a rhyme for “recollect/genuflect/reject” and “after prison” at the end. 

2. Try writing your own ghazal! Ghazals are in couplets, usually couplets that can stand on their own, like these—but if you want to connect them that’s fine. The author’s name appears in the last one.  You can use any rhyme and repeating word or phrase you like—you don’t have to stick with “after prison.”