Rajiv Mohabir
@rajivmohabir
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Poet. Translator. WHALE ARIA (2023) @FourWayBooks , CUTLISH (2021) @FourWayBooks , ANTIMAN (2021) @RestlessBooks Et plus. (he/any). Views my own.
Joined June 2014
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ILL BE THERE TODAY
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I’m screaming!!! Look what came today!!! Copies of WHALE ARIA!! So grateful that this book is coming to life from
@fourwaybooks
❤️🙏🏾😭🐋
Cover art by Anjani Prashad: MY MOTHER!!!
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To declare your writing is apolitical is to engage in white supremacist fantasy.
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Holy God!!!
Congratulations to the finalists for the NBCC Award for Poetry: B.K. Fischer, Donika Kelly, Rajiv Mohabir, Cheswayo Mphanza, and Diane Seuss!
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It’s terrifying to publish nonfiction and memoir especially—but the more we talk about what we’ve gone through the more light we are able to offer to one another. Imagine a well lit path instead of all of us fumbling along in the darkness? Which world would you rather live in?
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Here’s a thing: read the poems and NOT the poet. How to instill this idea in students when we live in a world obsessed with celebrity?
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I am excited to announce that this fall I will be an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder! I’m sad to leave many great colleagues and students AND excited to be part of such a dynamic program peopled by writers that I have long admired!
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Author photo by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada. How I love him, the photo, and Hawai`i ❤️🙏🏾
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I'm so glad to be able to say 🔥💥 My memoir has a face! 💥🔥 I am so grateful to the designer and to the judges and to the editors who took a chance on this little hybrid thing. Here is the cover and a link to preorder it from
@RestlessBooks
!
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Imagining a life where I never was made to feel guilty or horrified by my pleasure. What if I could have learned to love as I wanted to, to desire as I desired? Thinking through the deep grief of these kinds of questions I never let haunt me before.
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Relearning your ancestral language(s) is hardly backwards facing. It’s finding beauty in the things your family/ancestors were taught to abandon to survive. It’s about finding beauty in where you come from and will be the map forward into a lifetime of solidarities.
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It's funny when people call my writing "self-important." I can't think of any other Guyanese American queers translating their family's oral traditions into a new, American idiom. If I don't think this work is important, who will?
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Got the cover of WHALE ARIA (Poems) coming out this September from
@FourWayBooks
! I'm so in love with this!!!
Oh, and the cover art is by Anjani Prashad (my mother)!
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Amazing news from the Guyana Prize for Literature! ANTIMAN was on the shortlist for nonfiction and CUTLISH won SECOND PLACE in poetry! To be seen in Guyana (and to have both of these books acknowledged) is a dream and I am so humbled!
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First birthday since my breakup with my partner of ten years. This was my bench mark. I survived it! Praise the gods of darkness! Praise the gods of the mountains! Praise the gods of dogs and cats and phone calls and friends and lovers! Praise this life I am living.
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So thrilled to say: I HAVE SIGNED CONTACTS FOR MY NEXT TWO COLLECTIONS WITH
@FourWayBooks
!!!! Cutlish (2021) and A Boy With Baleen for Teeth (2023)!!!!! <3 <3 <3
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Y'all. So I can't believe this. I am still pinching myself. I am going to have a memoir out. This memoir won a book prize. This book prize is the New Immigrant Writing Prize from
@RestlessBooks
Thank you to Ilan Stavans, Hétor Tobar, and Terry Hong <3
Congratulations to
@rajivmohabir
, winner of the
@RestlessBooks
2019 New Immigrant Writing Prize! You can read an excerpt of his memoir "Antiman" here.
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Oh my god. Pinching myself.
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Almost had a panic attack when my therapist asked for an emergency contact in the area. I'm new here and newly single. What a terrible question: who loves you where you are? My answer is even more harrowing.
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Teaching an Asian Am class this semester? Remember: there are brown Asian Americans AND America is bigger than the US. There are Asian descended folks in Central America, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America too.
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Just had an accepted poem about Palestine pulled from a pub. They had three already in an anthology--is there a quota for poems about genocide??? Really??? Reader, I PULLED ALL OF MY POEMS FROM THIS ANTHOLOGY. gtwfoh
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I am stoked to announce, now that it's all official, that starting fall 2019
@Jordohi
and I will be relocating to the Boston area as I have accepted a TT job at
@Emerson_WLP
's MFA program!!! I am so eager and beyond thrilled to join this amazing department!!!
@BenoitDLewis
<3
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Syllabus writing people (t’is the season): REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE BROWN ASIAN AMERICANS TOO. Ok thx. Bye.
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ON MEMOIR: The emotional cost of writing your life is dear. Many people will be wonderful about your book and many will malign and contest your accounting. Losing friends and family along the way will be hard if I'm honest.
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ANTIMAN won the Forward Indies award for lgbtq+ adult nonfiction! What a terrific bday gift for my first nonfic baby!
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In PhD programs—or at least when I was a grad student—there was such emphasis on finding the flaws in thinking and making an “intervention.” No wonder people stop loving what they do and keep tearing themselves and others down. Time for a new paradigm?
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AWP lesson: If someone says your name wrong correct them. Even if they are a professor, a famous writer, who-the-hell ever. Correct me dammit. You deserve to have your name said there way you want it to be said.
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Today is a GREAT day to get out of a shitty friendship. I'm thinking about one I ran from--the racism I overlooked because I was naive and in survival mode. You can do it. It's hella painful, but from the other side, it's bright despite this New England weather <3
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PSA: If someone says "no" to your request--no matter what it is--respect their answer. Whatever they might be going through may be invisible to you and is also none of your g-damn business. Accept the "no" the first time.
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To my coolie people: don’t let subcons (for this tweet’s sake but really anybody) tell you who you are. Even if they learn a little history they don’t know you. To be Caribbean is to be a chutney of people, languages, and seas— We are real and we scare the shit out of them.
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How to survive nostalgia? Thinking about the doors I closed to old friends. What if I never closed any? Would my house be filled with moths? Would all my silks have holes? Would there be in the rafters a bat colony whose nightly exodus would astound me again and again?
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So glad to share that my third collection of poems called CUTLISH as in cutlass or machete is ready to preorder from Four Way Books!!! This collection sees the chutney poem brought to life! Order a copy or twenty!!!
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It’s a sad day when I give people my labor out of friendship and they don’t remember me. Oh, naïve Rajiv…please keep believing in kindness but remember to extend it to yourself.
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I think I've written enough poems in Hindi for a book? I am going to translate it myself...I'm feeling giddy!
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Happy new year! This year I vow to queer the fuck out of 2021. Join me.
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Being in NYC to celebrate this miracle book ANTIMAN tonight reminds me that my NYC is immigrant, brown, queer. I’m so grateful for my genre-resisting Caribbean people. We are beautiful.
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This is getting real!!! 🙏🏾♥️
"
@rajivmohabir
invents a mode to encompass the complexities of his existence as an Indo-Guyanese poet who is 'queer sexually, queer religiously, queer by caste, & queer countried.' ....Fans of Ocean Vuong, Alexander Chee & Saeed Jones will adore this book!"
💐
@booksaremagicbk
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I EVEN REGRET NIGHT: HOLI SONGS OF DEMERARA (originally published in 1916 by Lalbihari Sharma) my new translations, out from
@kayapress
April 2019! Order here:
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Today is publication day for WHALE ARIA out from
@FourWayBooks
! I can't believe it's finally out! It took a decade of work and research but here it is! For today I made a video of me reading "Boy with Baleen for Teeth" filmed by Corinne Hyde.
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So thrilled to receive this honor with so many others whose work I adore!
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Dear silence, dear grief, you’ve entered my home and I will hold you until we become friends, until you become my beloved, until I can kiss your cheek as you leave me again.
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Come write creative nonfiction with me!
@Orion_Magazine
is offering a workshop from 5/31-7/5 where we will be exploring the boundaries of genre. Applications due 4/15!!! Read more here:
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Waxwing is open for submissions!!! Send your translations, I would love to read them!!!
Waxwing is open to submissions of translations year round. Translations editor
@rajivmohabir
would love to read your work.
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Today is the publication day of the paperback of ANTIMAN from
@RestlessBooks
❤️❤️❤️ I am so grateful to you all who have read it, reviewed it, and engaged with this history! There’s a reading guide and interview in the back!
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If you’re only quoting white folks in your craft essays and arguments then you’re the one who isn’t reading enough.
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What wonderful magic to have both CUTLISH and ANTIMAN long listed for different awards from PEN America! I so so filled with disbelief and so much gratitude right now to be counted among these poets and writers whose work I love so much!
@FourWayBooks
@RestlessBooks
Juried by panels of esteemed, award-winning writers, editors, translators & critics, the 2022
#PENLitAwards
Longlists recognize dynamic, diverse & thought-provoking examples of literary excellence. Congratulations to all of our longlisters! Learn more: .
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What an honor to have this translation chosen for the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award! Congratulations to everyone who has been acknowledged here! (With thanks to
@gbahadur
for passing this book to me and to
@kayapress
for giving the poems life!)
We're pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020 American Poets Prizes!
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Attn newly minted PhDs: don’t be in a hurry to reproduce the same toxic, abusive environments you survived.
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Grateful to The Offing for publishing these poems I withdrew from a forthcoming ghazal anthology that originally didn't want to publish too many poems about Palestine and the genocide.
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Grateful to Indo-Caribbean Canadian Associtio’s journal STORY for publishing this queer essay on learning Hindustani.
@indocaribcdn
There’s also a gif of my mother clapping roti which is the best part of my essay!
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My heart! My memoir is a finalist at
@RestlessBooks
New Immigrant Writing Prize!!!!
We are pleased to announce the shortlist of finalists for the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing!
Congratulations to
@rajivmohabir
, Junis Sultan,
@RuFreeman
, Sarah Chaves, and
@WildeFranc
!
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Me:
Every South Asian Hindu Professor: I don’t believe in caste but I’m a brahmin.
Me: 🙃 🤢 🤮
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Feeling hopeful today and less alone and held as a poet. Sending to you all this love I’m feeling ❤️
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This summer I have four essays forthcoming: 1. a peer reviewed piece, 2. an academic book review, 3. a personal essay, and 4. a poetry craft essay on my forthcoming book! This semester has been INTENSE. Now, to finish packing up my life in Boston...
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So grateful to have CUTLISH from
@FourWayBooks
receive the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur for 2022! Congrats to all the finalists including
@anandalima
❤️
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Thanks friends and fam and loved ones all who have shown me support in my own personal midnight. Thank you for reminding me that from the darkness the Maker summoned light. Wishing light for me, light for all.
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So sorry to have to write this essay but hopefully it helps some folks. It’s called “WHAT TO SAY WHEN PEOPLE SAY, ‘BUT WASN’T COLONIZATION A GOOD THING?’”
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Friends, this is going to be siiiiiiiiiiick! An anthology on chutney music, translation, and diaspora from
@kayapress
later this year!
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So thankful to be included in
@MariposaBoy
‘s issue of
@pshares
as I get ready for my move to Boston for my new position as assistant professor in the MFA program at
@Emerson_WLP
♥️❤️♥️
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Goals/Statement of poetics: KICK DOWN THE DOOR AND BRING EVERYONE IN.
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I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU ALL ARIA AFTER ARIA!
Humpback sex photographed for first time – and both whales were male | Whales | The Guardian
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To be in such company is a dream! So grateful ❤️
Congratulations to our 2022 Lammy Finalists in Gay Memoir/Biography!
@rajivmohabir
🌟
@peterstaley
🌟
@jpbrammer
🌟
@LuisFelipeFabre
-
@JDPluecker
🌟
Brian Broome 🌟
#Lammy2022
#lammyfinalist
#LGBTQbooks
#gaymemoir
#gaybiography
Full list here:
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In 1838 the first ships carrying indentured laborers from India landed in Guyana. In this poem I remember the Jahajis and celebrate their survival, not their “arrival.” This poem is from CUTLISH from
@fourwaybooks
(September 2021).
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Is this a pandemic thing or a me thing: socializing feels like it costs way more emotional energy than it used to? Why do I feel spiritually exhausted?
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Oh hey, are you a student and doing the
#SealeyChallenge
and need a book for your list? I have 10 copies of CUTLISH forthcoming from
@FourWayBooks
this September! I will send copies next week to the first ten folks who dm me their addresses. (Please feel free to share)
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Today my Aji would have been 100 years old. When I sing to her I can hear her sing back. What a wonder that in her 100th year some of her songs and stories will be published in my memoir. I can’t help but understand this as part of our cosmic dance. ❤️ Happy 100th year dear Ajiya
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Honored to be a finalist for this year’s Forward INDIES Book of the Year Award! ❤️🐋❤️
Whale Aria: 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist
#finalist
#poetry
| via
@ForewordReviews
Congratulations to Rajiv Mohabir (
@rajivmohabir
), author of WHALE ARIA, 2023 finalist for Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in poetry!
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When cis white men tell me that I’m unintelligent it reminds me of grad school, of undergrad, of high school, of middle school, of elementary school, of anytime I ever had an opinion they don’t like or didn’t understand.
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At the airport and the thing about casual racism is that white people don’t sit next to me in the waiting area. Tbh today I’m very okay with the distance they keep. Very okay.
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WHALE ARIA come out next week! I'm so excited that this work has taken shape. If you like reading poems and if you like whales consider preordering! If you cannot, call your local library!
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PSA to South Asians: (and I'm tired of this nonsense) if you want to come and "correct" the ways I speak about the Coolie Diaspora, first do your homework & read how we write about ourselves. Here's a small sample list: YOU'RE WELCOME.
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I EVEN REGRET NIGHT: HOLI SONGS OF DEMERARA on this reading list of Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month list by CLMP! I can't believe my community's coolie history is being recognized!
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So excited that CUTLISH is available for preorder!!! This book took blood and sweat—I am so giddy to have it sing out ❤️
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My poem up at
@POETSorg
❤️🐋 with all the love for No‘u Revilla for her curating poems this month!
When I think of the deepest
dive in the mammalian
world, I hear Antonio Gramsci
who developed the term
hegemonic pressure, how
underwater it works to consolidate
mass and to influence the body
––Rajiv Mohabir
@rajivmohabir
#PoemADay
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I'm so happy to be fine tooth combing my manuscript for typesetting!!! WHALE ARIA (Sept. 2023) has taken about a decade of my life to write--there may actually be a poetic trilogy!
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So honored to be in conversation with the US Poet Laureate tonight about her new hybrid memoir! Every time I hear her talk I learn more and more and more ❤️
U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo stops by our virtual stage TONIGHT. To read from and discuss her new book, Poet Warrior. At 7:30 pm ET, with
@rajivmohabir
:
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Oh I know what I’ll do at 2am…I’ll listen to all the albums from my early twenties and remember how broken and alone I felt. I blow my past self a kiss and write to heal that broken boy I was.
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Been rereading Césaire and this text in particular. “A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization.” It’s funny we think of the West, of whiteness, of Empire as being “civilized” when in fact we trade on genocide.
the opening of Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, tr. Joan Pinkham (PDF):
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Why have there not been any Caribbean American poetry book prizes??? There are so many amazing emerging Caribbean American poets! Any presses want to take this up? Happy to give my opinions!
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Thank you to
@EntropyMag
for listing BOTH Anitman (on the nonfiction list) and Cutlish (on the poetry list) this year!!! What an honor from a wonderful journal/platform/community <3
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These devotional poems just keep erupting from me. I can't wait to see what they teach me about myself.
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Glad for my recent rejection from
@GuernicaMag
seeing as this is the kind of apologia they publish.
“There was goodwill but not enough to straddle the chasm that divided us.”
In Israel, a translator tries to tread the line of empathy. From
@joannachen1
's essay “From the Edges of a Broken World.”
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Dear young Rajiv--you deserve everything you want in love.
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Tomorrow I’m off to Guyana! Thank you to
@gbahadur
for putting together and proposing what will be a panel on the text she uncovered while researching her book! I EVEN REGRET NIGHT: HOLI SONGS OF DEMERARA
@kayapress
is coming back to Guyana—back home. Praise be!
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If another damn person tells me how hard it is for cishet white men to get academic jobs these days I swear I’m going to burn every pair of cargo shorts I see!!!
#byeChad
#Wearecomingforyourinstitutions
#wutkineslackness
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Dear grief at departure, I sit with you today as you teach me about what I love. Thank you for the red-vented bulbul and this slanting morning light. Thank you for opening me to the danger of loving the immense.
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*Bump* This. September. ❤️🐋🎶
Got the cover of WHALE ARIA (Poems) coming out this September from
@FourWayBooks
! I'm so in love with this!!!
Oh, and the cover art is by Anjani Prashad (my mother)!
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I am hearing from folks who preordered ANTIMAN that it's already shipped (my copies are also on their way)!!! I'm so excited to see the physical copies too!!! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO PREORDERED!!! SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!
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If I owe you things, please know I'm moving very slowly due to an illness that has my mind in a complete fog. I will respond as soon as possible.
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Just wrote a poem and it's not even 9am. Damn. These mountains are already changing me. ❤️⛰️🏔️🗻🌄
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Ok ok ok. So I don't like to talk about when I write poems but but but BUT BUT.....I just wrote a sonnet in CREOLESE!!! Is this even real?
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My First Peer Reviewed Article Came Out Today!!! Give it a read and/or citation!!!! It's called: "Chutneyed Poetics: Reading Diaspora and Sundar Popo’s Chutney Lyrics as Indo-Caribbean Postcolonial Literature"
So excited and terrified--
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