Collected Ghazals by Jim Harrison. Afterword by Denver Butson (Copper Canyon Press, paperback)
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Publisher Marketing: The ghazal, a poetic form rooted in seventh-century Arabia, became popular in the United States through the translations of Rumi, Hafiz, and Ghalib. As a young poet, Jim Harrison became enamored with ghazals, and while he ignored most of the formal rules, within the energized couplets he discovered a welcome vehicle for his driving passions, muscular genius, and wrecking-ball rages. The year Outlyer & Ghazals appeared, The New York Times honored the book with inclusion on their coveted "Noteworthy Titles" list, provocatively noting that these poems were "worth loving, hating, and fighting over." Collected Ghazals gathers all of Harrison's published ghazals into a single volume, accompanied by an "Afterword" by poet and noted ghazal writer Denver Butson, who writes that with this collection, Harrison's ghazals "are ours to witness again in all their messy, brave, honest, grieving, lustful, longing humanity."
