Q & A With Professor Sarah Ghazal Ali
by Ahlaam Abdulwali ‘25
Last semester, the English department hired and welcomed Professor Sarah Ghazal Ali. Her upcoming poetry collection Theophanies is the 2022 Alice James Award Editor’s Choice. One of the poems from this collection, Matrilineage [umbilicus], was featured on Poem-a-Day, and I strongly encourage you to read this contrapuntal poem if you haven’t already. Professor Ali starts teaching classes here in the fall semester of 2024, and we wanted to check in to hear more about Professor Ali’s life since being hired at Mac.
AA: I couldn’t help but notice that your middle name is Ghazal! Do you think your name ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in some way?
SGA: I love this question! I do think it’s a funny case of nominative determinism. I became curious about my name pretty early in life. My father has a beautiful voice, and would often sing Pakistani ghazals in the car. One day I asked him what was special about those songs, why he liked them, and he explained to me that they were ghazals—repetitive, musical poems driven by passion and/or pain. The way he explained them to me imbued them with wonder and magic, and I’ve been fascinated by formal poetry ever since.
AA: What has your writing process been like this past year? Are you finding yourself drawn to specific forms or content? When writing, do you start off with a form in mind, or do you let a form appear from what you wrote?
SGA: This past year, I’ve been reading a lot more than writing, but when I do write, it’s usually ekphrastic. I’ve been writing more poems that respond to art, and have been thinking of the blank page as a room I’m about to enter in a museum. What might it look like to write a poem that acts as an exhibit, and to frame the book as a museum or gallery space a reader might meander through? I’m not sure where this will take me, but it’s what I’m thinking about these days. Overall, form usually drives content for me—it gives me a useful shape to feel the poem through.
AA: I’m currently taking a course focused on poetic attention with Professor Michael Prior. How has your poetic attention shifted or changed within the past year? How do you expect it to change as you adjust to Macalester?
SGA: My attention has shifted dramatically with the birth of my daughter this past July. This is the first time in my life that I have no time at all to think about myself—all my time, attention, and energy are directed toward her instead. I sit and watch her breathe, I obsess over how much she’s drinking and sleeping. She has made me more hungry for poetry that attempts to imagine into being a better world, a better future. I think being at Macalester, surrounded by bright young minds, will continue to hone my focus on poetry that envisions otherwise—Adrienne Rich said in “Dreamwood” that “poetry / isn’t revolution but a way of knowing / why it must come.”
AA: You’ll be moving from California to Minnesota soon! What are you most excited for in St. Paul? Do you think this change in landscape will shape your poetry differently?
SGA: I’m really excited to experience real seasons! Northern California just has hot summer and cold summer, so I’m looking forward to being able to track time more clearly just by looking out my window. I went to grad school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I noticed that I tend to write better during the winter. I’m hoping the long winters in Minnesota are fruitful seasons for my creative work.
AA: I speak for everyone when I say that we are all excited for you to be on campus! How have you been spending your last year in California? How do you feel about the move?
SGA: Thank you, I’m just as excited to come and meet you all! I’ve been spending a lot of my time with family, making sure everyone gets plenty of baby snuggles in before we move. I’m also trying to soak in as much of the literary scene in San Francisco before I leave—I’m going to miss Green Apple Books and City Lights so dearly. It’s always sad to leave a familiar, beloved place, but I’m so, so excited to find new things and places and people to cherish in the Midwest. Moving means growing to me!
AA: Are there any poems/poets that you’ve been reading lately? What draws you to these poems/poets?
SGA: I’ve been spending time with the work of Palestinian poets lately, for what they teach me about humanity, resilience, and clarity—specifically Birthright by George Abraham and You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat. Al-Hayyat’s work is gorgeous because of the way humor and levity are woven throughout. Abraham’s work I’ve been relishing for its formal inventiveness. George does things on and with the page that are deeply exciting and surprising and alive. I’m also rereading Rilke’s Book of Hours. I return to it whenever I feel distant from poetry. It brings me back, time and time again.
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Thank you to Professor Ali for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions! As an aspiring poet, it’s wonderful to learn more about the writing process. Be sure to be on the lookout for Theophanies in 2024!