Bellevue University Professor's Poem Featured in Rattle Poetry Magazine
The latest issue of Rattle poetry magazine, one of the country's foremost poetry magazines, features a poem by Bellevue University Professor Dr. Clif Mason.
Dr. Mason's poem, entitled “Fractured Double Ghazal," is included in the Rattle issue Tribute to the Ghazal. Read Dr. Mason's ghazal in its entirety below.
According to the Academy of American Poets, the ghazal is composed of a minimum of five couplets and no more than 15 that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous. Each line of the poem must be of the same length. The ghazal has its roots in seventh century Arabia and ghazals traditionally invoke love, longing, melancholy and metaphysical questions.
Mason, who recently retired as Professor of English and Humanities at the University, is an accomplished poet. He is the author of one full-length collection, Knocking the Stars Senseless (Stephen F. Austin State University Press), and three chapbooks: The Book of Night & Waking (winner of the Cathexis Northwest Press Chapbook Prize); Self-Portraits in Which I Do Not Appear (Finishing Line Press); and From the Dead Before (Lone Willow Press).
Mason's work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has won prizes from the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest (chosen by Marge Piercy), Writers’ Journal, Plainsongs, the Midwest Writers’ Conference, and the Academy of American Poets. He has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Rwanda, Africa..
