{"id":13164,"date":"2026-01-06T19:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13164"},"modified":"2026-01-06T19:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:04:12","slug":"sarah-ghazal-ali-theophanies-reviewed-by-ian-pople","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13164","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Ghazal Ali, Theophanies, reviewed by Ian Pople"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Ghazal Ali | Theophanie<\/em>s | 87 Press: \u00a314.99<\/strong>
Reviewed by Ian Pople\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ghazal Ali\u2019s book discusses what visible manifestations of God – or a \u2018theophany\u2019 – might mean in a feminist context. She draws on both Muslim and Christian perspectives on women\u2019s relationships with God; in particular, how those perspectives might sit in a contemporary context.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this collection, Ghazal Ali\u2019s approach is signalled in the very first poem: \u2018My Faith Gets Grime under Its Nail\u2019. As the blurb comments, \u2018[Ghazal Ali] asks: what more might a woman\u2019s body hold after it has been hailed as a body for the divine?\u2019 This first poem is a short, stand-alone sequence in which Ghazal Ali tells us about the \u2018places I\u2019ve prayed \u2013 elevators, Victoria\u2019s Secret \/ fitting room, the muck-slick meadow after rain – \/ which will testify for or against me, spilling through my Book of Deeds\u2019. Each section of the poem is prefaced with a surah from the Qur\u2019an; section three is prefaced with \u2018Say, I seek refuge with the Lord of Dawn.\u2019 This is followed by, \u2018One a month blood roams \/ like mint over immaculate grass,\u2019 and later, \u2018let the angels in \/\/ to spectate the ache \/ and erase a sin for every devoted cramp.\u2019 So, we can see that Ghazal Ali\u2019s own perspective is to place what have traditionally been quite taboo areas of a woman\u2019s experience, in a sense, before God and the angels. The earlier mention of Victoria\u2019s Secret implants a contemporary female context within that perspective. Thus, the woman\u2019s body that Ghazal Ali depicts is contemporary in ways that \u2018the body for the divine\u2019 might, perhaps, elide.<\/p>\n

It is clear that Theophanies <\/em>focuses on triangulating the female body with the sacred and divine. It should be emphasised that Ghazal Ali does this with considerable power and imagination. \u2018Parable of Flies\u2019 begins with, \u2018I heard them, wings beating \/ a din beyond the thistle, pilgrims \/ beckoned by the promise of carrion.\u2019 And its final stanza is, \u2018I\u2019m divining my body a dirtied domestic. \/ When it rains, devotion is the womb \/ I\u2019ve hollowed to keep desire dry.\u2019 Of course, to hollow out the trajectory of the poem in the way I\u2019ve just done is to undermine the subtle contrasts Ghazal Ali is making.<\/p>\n

\u2018Parable of Flies\u2019 traces that trajectory from the flies\u2019 so-called \u2018pilgrimage\u2019 in the second line through to the \u2018devotion\u2019 and \u2018desire\u2019 that Ghazal Ali finishes with. In the middle of the poem, that trajectory is \u2018an economy of asylum\u2019 from \u2018my body a dirtied domestic\u2019, which is where \u2018devotion is the womb.\u2019 The womb is a place of devotion not only to the God that Ghazal Ali is devoted to, but also a place of creation away from the sullying of the outer world. Elsewhere, however, the poem \u2018Tumulus\u2019 ends \u2018O Maryam, \/ is birth not its own \/ inhumation, \/ did your child not emerge \/ perfectly alive \/ and written to die?\u2019<\/p>\n

This sense of an inevitable teleology in a woman\u2019s life pervades this collection: \u2018Apotheosis\u2019 begins:<\/p>\n

Listen-if I\u2019ve learned anything from men,
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s that their tongues are bare
and motherless, lapping the breast of brawn
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0they mistake for a masculine God.<\/p>\n

And it ends,<\/p>\n

I know nothing of God\u2019s plan or the invasive empires
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of devotion, gardens I waste away wanting.
I fell heir to my father\u2019s hands, anguish, eyes-
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the crimes of men beget the crimes of men.<\/p>\n

Between these two points, Ghazal Ali plots a path that includes beheading, passing a date pit from her mouth into the mouth of her lover, the possibility of assault, and the inevitability of her submission in a man\u2019s world. However, there is also the sense that \u2018[her] faith in God was inevitable as an oil spill.\u2019 Thus, Ghazal Ali juggles the secular, with all its threats and opportunities, almost in parallel with the religious. It is a testament to her skill that she is able to do this while allowing both those spheres to work together. This unity is personified for Ghazal Ali in the life of Maryam\/Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose life Ghazal Ali places at the forefront of many of the poems in this book with great adroitness and musicality. Sarah Ghazal Ali\u2019s Theophanies <\/em>has now found a British publisher after receiving a slew of prizes in the US.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Ian Pople <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Ghazal Ali | Theophanies | 87 Press: \u00a314.99Reviewed by Ian Pople\u00a0 Ghazal Ali\u2019s book discusses what visible manifestations of God – or a \u2018theophany\u2019 – might mean in a feminist context. She draws on both Muslim and Christian perspectives on women\u2019s relationships with God; in particular, how those perspectives might sit in a contemporary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nSarah Ghazal Ali, Theophanies, reviewed by Ian Pople - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13164\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sarah Ghazal Ali, Theophanies, reviewed by Ian Pople - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sarah Ghazal Ali | Theophanies | 87 Press: \u00a314.99Reviewed by Ian Pople\u00a0 Ghazal Ali\u2019s book discusses what visible manifestations of God – or a \u2018theophany\u2019 – might mean in a feminist context. 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