Sarah Ghazal Ali

Sarah Ghazal Ali serves as Assistant Professor in the English Department at Macalester College, teaching courses including Introduction to Creative Writing and Crafts of Writing: Poetry.

Her educational background includes an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was a Juniper Fellow and MFA Fellow.

Dr. Ali's creative scholarship explores form in poetry, Asian/Asian-American poetics, archival poetry, and the lyric essay, reflecting interdisciplinary engagement with literary traditions and experimental writing practices.

Her distinguished recognition includes:

• Editors’ Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award for Theophanies (Alice James Books, 2024)
• The Sewanee Review Poetry Prize
• Fellowships from Tin House, Stadler Center, Kundiman, and Hambidge Center

As poetry editor for West Branch, she contributes to literary curation while publishing in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry magazine, demonstrating sustained impact in contemporary poetry.