Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight: Sarah Ghazal Ali
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their publishing careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of poets who are Black, Indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC). We hope using our platform to highlight this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to celebrate and support emerging women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities; featured poems will be from poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
January 2025 Poet: Sarah Ghazal Ali
Daughter
Too stubborn to supplicate, I bend for luster not love. For absolution, I break my bones, soften gristle with what teeth remain. Mine an umbilical affliction without cure. Do you think I asked to eavesdrop through inherited eyes? Recite to me a single memory not manufactured. Even a mother is myth, fabling to survive a marriage miscarriage man. Call me a reed. Voices lake behind my eyes. The rims of wounds have wounds as well. I have a theory about mirrors that I won't risk repeating. The women who made me already know.
Source
Theophanies, Alice James Books, 2024
Poet Bio
Sarah Ghazal Ali is a South Asian writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of Theophanies (Alice James Books), winner of the 2025 GLCA New Writers Award and a finalist for a Golden Poppy Award. A Stadler and Kundiman fellow, her poems have been published in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. Sarah is the poetry editor for West Branch and an Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.