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Revisiting the Canon through the Ghazal in English 193and profoundly learned, who owned no property and borrowed hisbooks, writing in an age of political and cultural break up.’ 11Rich and the other American writers could perhaps identifythemselves with the situation in which Ghalib had composed hisverses and how the ghazal had facilitated the expression of hismoods and thoughts. It was a time of cultural and political breakupand Ghalib found the ghazal form to be the most suitable in so far asthe couplet structure easily afforded a switch of moods without inany way disturbing the appeal of the whole. Similar was the casewith Rich. Rich recalls her growing-up years as overtly dominatedby the intellectual presence and demands of her father, whilecovertly marked by the submerged tensions and silences arisingfrom the conflicts between the religious and cultural heritage of herfather’s Jewish background and her mother’s southern Protestantism.Her relationship with her father was one of strong identification anddesire for approval, yet it was adversarial in many ways. Under histutelage Rich first began to write poetry, conforming to his standardswell past her early successes and publications.Rich’s poetry has clearly recorded, imagined, and forecasther personal and political journeys with searing power. In 1956, shebegan dating her poems to underscore their existence within acontext, and to argue against the idea that poetry existed separatelyfrom the poet’s life. Stylistically, she began to draw oncontemporary rhythms and images, especially those derived from thecinematic techniques of jump cuts and collage. Leaflets (1969), TheWill to Change (1971), and Diving into the Wreck (1973)demonstrate a progressive coming to power as Rich contends againstthe desolation patriarchy enacts on literal and psychic landscape.Intimately connected with this struggle for empowerment and action,is the deepening of her determination ‘to write directly and overtlyas a woman, out of a woman’s body and experience.’ 12