This poem by Harry Gilonis was written for the millennium. It describes a bird’s strident call in a bleak winter landscape, which stands also as the poet’s ‘desolate song’ for the old/new century. The poem loosely follows the ghazal form, popular in Middle Eastern literature, which typically expresses the melancholy feelings of a speaker who has been separated from a loved one. Gilonis has been publishing books of poetry since the late 1980s. His collection Rough Breathing: Selected Poems, which includes ‘century’s end ghazal’, was issued by Carcanet in 2018.
frost was, shades were, spectral, grey whitish washed buff with black speckles
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
