My granted days I could live or leave. Each loaned
breath I can—do—waste or wield, straining
for the bell in belief. How an arrow flees limb to pierce.
How a pen bleeds to grant shape to speech.
From “Theophanies,” Theophanies
All poets proffer. A theophany however, is an encounter with the Divine through the act of profession. A manifestation of one’s engagement with the Creator. It is especially common in the Abrahamic religious traditions. In Sarah Ghazal Ali‘s Theophanies she brings the best of both worlds, through this poetic exegesis of Islamic faith in a way that stunned me — page by page, poem by poem.
Ever you ever read a poetry collection that was made you shout aloud how good it was while reading it? That’s the impact that this work impressed upon me as a reader. Ali uses the ghazal, an Arabic poetic tradition rooted through her family to examine her spiritual connection with the women prophets — Eve, Maryam (Mary), Sarai (Sarah), Hajar (Hagar), Mary Magdalene, etc. This is where the act of a theophany takes place at it’s purest form, through her personal engagement with these prophets directly.
With most poetry collections, I often want to digest the poems in small bites. Every so often however, I find myself engaging with a poet’s work where I must know what comes on the next page to the point I cannot bear to put it down. What I loved most about this collection, was the fact that Sarah does not steer from the controversial, unafraid to confront the things she has faced. These are not easy things for any poet to engage with — as subjects of reflection include connections between motherhood, familial trauma, and the duality of joy and pain that comes with religious experience.
Sarah Ghazal Ali connects the universal pains women have shared from Hajar to now, confronting it with a poetic language that will make you shout about how good it is. Ali writes:
Hajar consoled Sarah consoled Hajar.
Bystanders squint with both eyes.
When labor afflicts my abdomen,
they’ll check to see if I’m effaced,
if my cervix is thin,
ripe enough to leak fresh life.
When a father approaches a mother,
he forgets to check the door
ajar and shading a watchful girl
who sees him raise his blade
of a hand—its straight and narrow path.
Who consoled Hajar consoled who?
In a world where the male prophets are often emphasized due to our patriarchal societies, I found this connection to the women of the Qur’an, Bible, and Torah ultimately refreshing while accurate in a way that only a woman deeply rooted in her faith could write. Ali’s dedication to her faith is evident throughout this collection. In the poem “Ghazal Ghazal” she writes:
My people are bordered. My people are borderless. My god swears
by the fig, the olive, the brightest star, the prophet who penned no ghazal.
My father practiced his english with me. I want to blame him.
My voice void of, my throat hostile to ghazals.
My father uncovered my hair. I want to blame him.
My prayers might never reach my god, nor my entreating ghazals.
In Islam, prayers should be performed in Arabic. Sarah Ghazal Ali connects a frustration with the English language both impacting her connection with the ghazal and prayer. I found this to be exceptionally profound, one that immigrants, and their children will particularly connect with whether a Muslim or not. Every immigrant child faces this conundrum of experiencing two worlds the world they are experiencing as the first generation and then the world their parents took from them as immigrants. Ali’s connection of this to the ghazal poetic structure and prayer brought what I believe to be the most important things needed when writing a collection — originality x the personal.
While originality and personal subjectivity are not the only ingredients to a good poem, for me they are universal to the best poems. This comes through with Theophanies, a collection I wish to return to again and again not just because of the important message around motherhood and family that this work has, but also because of its beautiful language, poignant craft, and revelatory messages. This is why I do not say this lightly, but I believe Theophanies is an early contender for top poetry collections of 2024.