Lines 1—2

The structure of Spires's "Ghazal" will be addressed later in detail, but one cannot analyze the poem's meaning without acknowledging the importance of its style. Contemporary writers of ghazals take some liberties with the original standard form but leave enough intact to make the framework recognizable. In this poem, Spires uses a pair of homonyms instead of rhyming words in the couplets, and the like-sounding terms she has selected greatly strengthen the work's message and tone. "Morning" and "mourning" produce an intriguing play off of one another throughout, and the controlled shift from one to the other conveys the overall somber mood of both words.

In the first two lines, the setting is doleful, with the speaker hearing her "name in the black air," or the darkness of "early morning." She claims it is "called out," but it is ambiguous as to whether her name is...