Make a Wish

In Make a Wish, Sarah Azizi confronts her inner angels and demons with brutal, affecting honesty. This is a fierce, brave book that does not flinch as it confronts the joys and perils of motherhood, the grave illness of a child, and the speaker's own evolving sexuality. These are not poems for the fainthearted, and yet throughout Azizi is convincing in her belief in "...this wondrous life, mundane/ and precious, all at once." -Elizabeth Spires, author of A Memory for the Future and Worldling

Sarah E. Azizi deftly explores "The uncharted territory / of our bodies" in this exhilarating debut. Simultaneously intimate and expansive, Make a Wish grapples with the joyous, terrifying complexity of being embodied, from a daughter's cancer,
to sexuality, to a friend whose disappearance haunts the book. These poems are humane and sharp-edged, shaped by desire and loss. Azizi writes "poems that leave / lingering stains" and will have you craving more. -Izzy Wasserstein, author of These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart.

In Make a Wish, Sarah Azizi writes to "rip off the band-aid of taboo." She invites us to sift through our mysteries and memories alongside matchboxes, sugar & spice, the touch of silk on skin, out of sight knives, hope and motherhood embraced, and the mundane gardens we happily tend. Her lush poems also affirm what it means "to be in & of this world" of desire, hunger, and sexuality. She gives voice and release to the fragile, abused, neglected, and the witness, carefully reminding us that our bodies are precious and "not meant to be camouflaged." -Juan J. Morales, author of The Handyman's Guide to End Times

"Fierce, tender, and frank poems that express the complexity of a woman's emotional life." -Kirkus Reviews