My Poetry in Books

A new book and a new vehicle for some of my poems! "Starry Nights: Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley" is an endeavor of the heart, a labor of love and an act of startling generosity by two women - Jyoti Bachani and Pragalbha Doshi - and several other collaborators I have never met in person. It is a measure of love in a world where we seem to have forgotten how to give without an accounting to and for our countable benefit, our factional loyalties and our narrow prejudices.

I became lucky in "meeting" Jyoti who unhesitatingly invited me to participate and included ten of my poems in this new offering that compiles work from startling talent among the diaspora in my 'hood aka Silicon Valley. The book is now out on Amazon and I hope you will support this 100% volunteer initiative by getting a copy for yourself and others.

Accidental poet…

Let me tell you the unlikely story of how I “allowed” myself to become or to be called a poet. It's yet another tale from a fidgety variety-seeker. When I started writing, or should I say when my poems started telling me what I was thinking and feeling, bursting out of me like rain from a restless, distended cloud, I didn't know where all these words were taking me.

For some reason, and entirely uncharacteristically, perhaps because at some level, my analytical, sensible and coulda-shoulda ways had stopped feeding my soul, I gave in. I let the words appear on my screen and often on paper. At first for my husband's eyes only and slowly sharing them with a few trusted friends and finally with a complete lack of shame on social media which allows for such hubris. I thought that was it and stayed happy with that much sharing.

But then came the virus, and because I found myself with time and space for "projects I could never imagine doing" I took all the poems and put them all out there in a book which became my first venture into a space where I dared to call myself a poet! Who, me? Yes came the answer. Who knew?

Found meaning

The result has surprised me. Not because I'm suddenly a prestigious poet or bask in any kind of recognition. Far from it. My poems are modest, haven't set the world on fire and brought me little prestige or fame. That wasn't what I was imagining when I dared to put my words out there. But something else happened. I became legit in my own eyes. But even more so a few of my poems spoke to some deeply and they told me.

And just for that reason, that infinitesimally small contribution to creating meaning for someone I may not even know that well, that silly notion that my words were out in the world and that they were read and meant something so someone I couldn't otherwise reach made me and makes me ecstatically and inexplicably happy.

So thank you for reading me. Whoever you are! Love always...

Links to books with my poems

1. Starry Nights: Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley

2. My debut anthology published in 2020 called Arrivals and Departures: Journeys in Poems

3. An Anthology of poems called “Close Friends and Relatives” by Poet’s Choice that contains the poem “Butterfly” about my daughter.