Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003), the last book of the Indian American poet Agha Shahid Ali, is a collection of ghazals in English published posthumously by W.W. Norton & Company. To make the American readers understand the ghazal form, the poet appends a short introductory note: “The ghazal can be traced back to seventh-century Arabia. In its canonical Persian (Farsi) form, arrived at in the eleventh century, it comprises autonomous or semi-autonomous couplets united by a strict scheme of rhyme, refrain, and line length.” Instead of thematic unity, the couplets of ghazals share formal unity. As Ali explains, the opening couplet sets up a scheme (of rhyme and refrain) that occurs in both lines and then occurs only in the second line of each succeeding couplet. The poet incorporates his name in the concluding couplet (also called the signature couplet).