28 Comments
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Peter Carl Anderson's avatar

Beautiful ghazal, and beautiful reading. Hell, yeah!

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you peter 💙

Dick Westheimer's avatar

Goodness, i love listening to you read ghazals. In this one i really enjoyed you repeating the word “no” in the last line. Also, you posting this is great timing for me as I am knee deep in a ghazal and part of my practice is to link to others’ ghazals to entrain myself in the rhythms of the form.

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you so much Dick! 💙 You're always deeply encouraging and kind

Elise Powers's avatar

Ooo LOVED hearing you read this— perfect vibe for HALLOWEEN 🧙‍♀️

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you so much Elise!!! I hope your Halloween was wonderful too with your little one

tinya's avatar

i can finally say i read something brilliant today

Shannan Mann's avatar

Oh my god thank you!!

Aditi Garg's avatar

The ghazal is beautiful and even more so in your voice!

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you Aditi! 💙

Abhinaba's avatar

Beautiful

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you 💙

Frank Sauce's avatar

Fun with /l/ in hell. This would go well with a be-bop rhythm in the back, too. Nice!

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thanks Frank!

Babeenee's avatar

Great reading, and when a ghazal is done well, like this one, so memorable

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you my friend!! 💙

Alex Dawson's avatar

Prayers do not sell in hell 🖤

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you for reading Alex!! 💙

Tara Mesalik MacMahon's avatar

Shannan, you are a such a force! with the voice of an angel. What an amazing and powerful ghazal, thank you for sharing it here and your beautiful reading. Also, for you BL post today—yes, such a gift is receiving love, kindness, too. I wish more took the moments to express such to someone(s) every day, heck, many times a day. There’s no “trick" to giving love and look what happens...

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you so much Tara! I love you 💙💙💙💙

Tara Mesalik MacMahon's avatar

I love you back! 💙💙💙💓

Polly Walker Blakemore's avatar

Great poem! Great photo! I have also had trouble landing my work in places because it is hard to classify. Diary? Memoir? Prose poem? I don't know! It just is what it is. But I will keep submitting. There are so many opportunities. I also want to say that your poetry curriculum post last week inspired me to buy Mary Ruefle's book and I mention your post and comments on it and about writing in an essay I intend to publish sometime the next couple of weeks. I will post a link in the comments to the poetry curriculum post if you want to take a look.

Shannan Mann's avatar

Thank you Polly!! And yes, with regards to submitting some of this stuff, the thing that's helped most is just submitting very very simultaneously and widely 💙💙

Polly Walker Blakemore's avatar

Six submissions today! So far!

Polly Walker Blakemore's avatar

Just had my first piece accepted! After 80 submissions! Yea for me!

Ferdyduke's avatar

Too be honest, pretty average

Evan C. Loving's avatar

I enjoyed reading this; your rhyme scheme resounds so melodically.