#lithicpress

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My 3rd collection “The Bluest Kali” is now restocked at SPD.

Get your copy here. 

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In a language I am thawed from, a single word stands for both— tongue and language. Zubaan.

Scherezade Siobhan, from “The Mirror I won’t (The Bluest Kali, Lithic Press 2018)

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The lyric voice in The Bluest Kali continues the mystic tradition of writing in the vein of such poets as Emily Dickinson, Hafez, and Basho.  As a “honeyed mongrel” who has “tried / to scheme [her]self into a quieter animal,” the speaker embodies the polyglottal person (56, 59). The Bluest Kali is fierce and rare in its deft navigation of the complexities of living in a linguistic house — a linguistic world — constantly being broken, repaired, and broken again. The speaker’s consistent refusal to be misinterpreted and reduced permeates the collection’s wild and inventive language. Yes, “some homes are like the brief pain of papercuts” — but, it is poems such as these that challenge and divert this pain, and are sorely needed by those who daily face implicit bias based on their otherness.

Ina Cariño reviews “The Bluest Kali” (Published at Anomalous Press)

“The Bluest Kali” is now available at SPD  & Lithic Press

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It took me a lifetime to write the poems that form the sinew, veins and blood flowing through my new book “The Bluest Kali”. It is a call to prayer and also a war-cry. Immense gratitude to Bhanu Kapil and Khaled Mattawa for reading the original manuscript and offering me their words in return. I am so glad that I have been able to work with some of the most gifted  folks while making this book come to life (Danny Rose, Kyle Harvey, Ishita Basu Mallik, each of them a lighthouse on their own). “The Bluest Kali” is now available for pre order via Lithic Press. Get a copy here.

And yes, I am going out and celebrating with a dash of purple “n” pink. 

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The Bluest Kali

The Bluest Kali Poetry. Women's Studies. Cover Art by Ishita Basu Mallik. THE BLUEST KALI is a series of linguistic exoricisms through the corridors of a brown woman's clinical depression, dissociations and displacements that extend from psychological to spiritual exiles...

I am so delighted by the response my new book “The Bluest Kali” has received so far.

A few copies are now left at SPD for worldwide shipping. Get yours soon!

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My next full length book “The Bluest Kali” is ready. Official release is October 2018 and I will be doing a short book tour through the US. 

In the meantime, it is staggering to believe the kind words both Bhanu Kapil and Khaled Mattawa have bestowed upon this savage grace. What a full circle when your icons read and love your work. 

"If this book is a threshold smudged with vermillion powder, then, barefoot, Mira dances on that red dirt. In the rain, I can't make out the new shapes. Is this "calligraphy"? Is this the "loosened pond"? What will it take to never-arrive? This is a book composed in an intense present -- the "returning wave" -- of trauma, ecstasy, displacement, radical healing and what, in other languages and at other times, was described as love." 

- (Bhanu Kapil)

"And like a forest fire that burns away dead wood and generous showers that waken dormant seeds these poems are indeed worthy of Kali, gorgeous and deeply blue."

- (Khaled Mattawa)

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SPD Recommends

My lil book “The Bluest Kali” is on the Recommended Books list for this month on SPD’s website.

Get you a copy as well?

Happy Reading!

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Cover shot of Kyle Harvey’s new album (Lithic Press, May 2017)

This artwork is so incredible, I am lowkey jealous this isn’t the cover for my next book. (Also, I am deliriously excited about this album because Kyle is a dozen different kinds of brilliant.)