Pramila Venkateswaran
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2015- Present
Pramila Venkateswaran embodies a remarkable service spirit to Literature in the largest sense, volunteering limitless hours to create platforms for others as a writer, panel formulator, host, translator, and reviewer. She brings a gravitas to Matwaala with her academic background and scholarship. Her teaching background, and her involvement in numerous activist groups enhance the serious concerns in the poetry field addressed by Matwaala. She is responsible for articulating the need for the poets-of-color series, deriving the term poets-of-color from people-of-color, and has created weighty panels under its umbrella such as the Dalit, Sri Lankan and Native American panels. She coedited the Matwaala anthology MAPS with Zilka Joseph.
She has lived in different cities in India and spent her college years in Bombay. She has a doctorate from George Washington University and became a published poet accidentally. Looking back, she is surprised that she has written poetry, essays, literary criticism, and fiction. She has recently taken to telling stories to her toddler granddaughter and produces her own children’s books. If she is not writing, she is practicing her guitar and composing songs, chanting, and doing yoga. She loves to hike and plans to visit as many national parks as she can. A part of a thriving community of activists and writers on Long Island, she engages with different groups, such as Multicultural Solidarity, The National Organization for Women, and the Long Island Authors Group. Passionate about her friendships and her deep connection with her fellow South Asian poets, she has devoted time to coordinating Matwaala. She does a variety of things on a given year: from painting yantras, to leading writing workshops for breast cancer survivors, organizing readings, to singing Carnatic music, to hosting community writing and meditation groups in her living room on Sunday afternoons.
Pramila Venkateswaran embodies a remarkable service spirit to Literature in the largest sense, volunteering limitless hours to create platforms for others as a writer, panel formulator, host, translator, and reviewer. She brings a gravitas to Matwaala with her academic background and scholarship. Her teaching background, and her involvement in numerous activist groups enhance the serious concerns in the poetry field addressed by Matwaala. She is responsible for articulating the need for the poets-of-color series, deriving the term poets-of-color from people-of-color, and has created weighty panels under its umbrella such as the Dalit, Sri Lankan and Native American panels. She coedited the Matwaala anthology MAPS with Zilka Joseph.
She has lived in different cities in India and spent her college years in Bombay. She has a doctorate from George Washington University and became a published poet accidentally. Looking back, she is surprised that she has written poetry, essays, literary criticism, and fiction. She has recently taken to telling stories to her toddler granddaughter and produces her own children’s books. If she is not writing, she is practicing her guitar and composing songs, chanting, and doing yoga. She loves to hike and plans to visit as many national parks as she can. A part of a thriving community of activists and writers on Long Island, she engages with different groups, such as Multicultural Solidarity, The National Organization for Women, and the Long Island Authors Group. Passionate about her friendships and her deep connection with her fellow South Asian poets, she has devoted time to coordinating Matwaala. She does a variety of things on a given year: from painting yantras, to leading writing workshops for breast cancer survivors, organizing readings, to singing Carnatic music, to hosting community writing and meditation groups in her living room on Sunday afternoons.
For a formal bio, click here.
| pramila_venkateswaran_curriculum_vitae.doc |
Links to my recent publications:
Exile is Not a Foreign Word (Copper Coin 2024)
https://www.coppercoin.co.in/product-page/exile-is-not-a-foreign-word
Tamil Dalit Feminist Poetics: Resistance, Solidarity, and Power (Rowman and Littlefield 2024)
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666921328/Tamil-Dalit-Feminist-Poetics-Resistance-Power-and-Solidarity
“Elegy for the Flora and Fauna of Gaza,”
https://www.collateraljournal.com/poetry/pramilavenkateswaran
“My Garden teaches me Paradox,”
https://poems.poetrybay.com/2024-2025-liq-edition/poems.poetrybay.com/2024-2025-liq-edition/
“Exile is Not a foreign Word,”
https://poems.poetrybay.com/2023-2024-liq-edition/pramila-venkateswaran/
Exile is Not a Foreign Word (Copper Coin 2024)
https://www.coppercoin.co.in/product-page/exile-is-not-a-foreign-word
Tamil Dalit Feminist Poetics: Resistance, Solidarity, and Power (Rowman and Littlefield 2024)
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666921328/Tamil-Dalit-Feminist-Poetics-Resistance-Power-and-Solidarity
“Elegy for the Flora and Fauna of Gaza,”
https://www.collateraljournal.com/poetry/pramilavenkateswaran
“My Garden teaches me Paradox,”
https://poems.poetrybay.com/2024-2025-liq-edition/poems.poetrybay.com/2024-2025-liq-edition/
“Exile is Not a foreign Word,”
https://poems.poetrybay.com/2023-2024-liq-edition/pramila-venkateswaran/
Interview:
Pramila Venkateswaran interviews Saleem Peeradina
A LIVING LEGACY (Ariel: A Review of International English Literature) https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/35789
Pramila Venkateswaran interviews Saleem Peeradina
A LIVING LEGACY (Ariel: A Review of International English Literature) https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/35789
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Articles:
Ekphrasis: art and poetry from the South Asian Diaspora
http://www.museindia.com/Home/ViewContentData?arttype=focus&issid=61&menuid=5707
“Recent Trends in South Asian American Poetry”
https://www.awpwriter.org/magazine_media/writers_chronicle_issues/marchapril_2011
“Radical Aesthetics in Tamil Dalit Poetry”
http://www.setumag.com/2017/08/radical-aesthetics-in-dalit-tamil-poetry.html
Ekphrasis: art and poetry from the South Asian Diaspora
http://www.museindia.com/Home/ViewContentData?arttype=focus&issid=61&menuid=5707
“Recent Trends in South Asian American Poetry”
https://www.awpwriter.org/magazine_media/writers_chronicle_issues/marchapril_2011
“Radical Aesthetics in Tamil Dalit Poetry”
http://www.setumag.com/2017/08/radical-aesthetics-in-dalit-tamil-poetry.html
Reviews:
http://poetrybazaar.blogspot.com/2017/03/final-cut-by-saleem-peeradina.html
http://poetrybazaar.blogspot.com/p/review-of-indran-amirthanayagams.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/dropping-death-by-duane-esposito-and-ralph-nazareth-yuganta-press.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/review-of-usha-akellas-the-rosary-of-latitudes-by-pramila-venkateswaran.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/swimming-with-whales-by-…
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/immigrant-by-usha-kishor…
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/andal-the-autobiography-of-a-goddess-translated-and-edited-by-priya-sarukkai-chabria-and-ravi-shankar-reviewed-by-pramila-venkateswaran.html
http://poetrybazaar.blogspot.com/2017/03/final-cut-by-saleem-peeradina.html
http://poetrybazaar.blogspot.com/p/review-of-indran-amirthanayagams.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/dropping-death-by-duane-esposito-and-ralph-nazareth-yuganta-press.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/review-of-usha-akellas-the-rosary-of-latitudes-by-pramila-venkateswaran.html
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/swimming-with-whales-by-…
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/immigrant-by-usha-kishor…
http://www.theenchantingverses.org/andal-the-autobiography-of-a-goddess-translated-and-edited-by-priya-sarukkai-chabria-and-ravi-shankar-reviewed-by-pramila-venkateswaran.html