Swati Rana
Swati Rana is a poet and professor. Her work has appeared in Asian American Literary Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Dalhousie Review, Granta, Jacket2, The Paris Review, swamp pink, Wasafiri, and elsewhere. She is the author of Race Characters (2020), which explores how social personhood and literary persona intersect. In 2023, she received the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize in Poetry. She teaches at UC Santa Barbara in the English Department.
[Dread stops all this]
To that many-sided
problem of losing
one irreplaceable
creature, I find
no answer. What
comes through
these nectaring parts
confounds you.
I speak litanies,
live in threat of that
windswept country of
sedges, gymnosperms,
few nut trees, scatter
of febrile apiaries
making last-ditch fruit.
Have you thought to
follow this hedgerow
where the multiform
and solitary species,
blackish-brown, yellow-
banded, rusty-patched,
do their quiet helping?
Dread stops all this.
Try and find just
one seeming wild.
When the tide of
battle changes look
for Bhramari’s six-legged
swarm tearing the large-
scale farm to pieces.
To that many-sided
problem of losing
one irreplaceable
creature, I find
no answer. What
comes through
these nectaring parts
confounds you.
I speak litanies,
live in threat of that
windswept country of
sedges, gymnosperms,
few nut trees, scatter
of febrile apiaries
making last-ditch fruit.
Have you thought to
follow this hedgerow
where the multiform
and solitary species,
blackish-brown, yellow-
banded, rusty-patched,
do their quiet helping?
Dread stops all this.
Try and find just
one seeming wild.
When the tide of
battle changes look
for Bhramari’s six-legged
swarm tearing the large-
scale farm to pieces.
Poems
“Frame Instructions for the Greater Common Good.” With Bakirathi Mani and Sa’dia Rehman. The Brooklyn Rail (July–August 2022).
“Isthmus,” “South Gone,” and “Seatac Sunset.” Granta. April 17, 2018.
“Under Bank.” swamp pink 93 (Spring 2018): 128–29.
“Frame Instructions for the Greater Common Good.” With Bakirathi Mani and Sa’dia Rehman. The Brooklyn Rail (July–August 2022).
“Isthmus,” “South Gone,” and “Seatac Sunset.” Granta. April 17, 2018.
“Under Bank.” swamp pink 93 (Spring 2018): 128–29.
Interviews
Lata Mani in Conversation with Cherríe Moraga and Swati Rana. Las Maestras Center, UC Santa Barbara. March 2023.
Race Characters Conversation with Stephanie Batiste. Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UC Santa Barbara. April 2021.
The Poets and Editors of the Anthology Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. The Holloway Series in Poetry, UC Berkeley. December 2010.
Lata Mani in Conversation with Cherríe Moraga and Swati Rana. Las Maestras Center, UC Santa Barbara. March 2023.
Race Characters Conversation with Stephanie Batiste. Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UC Santa Barbara. April 2021.
The Poets and Editors of the Anthology Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. The Holloway Series in Poetry, UC Berkeley. December 2010.
Other Links
“Sacred Experiments, Intimate Politics.” The Immanent Frame. June 19, 2024.
“Art Making and Motherhood in the Pandemic Diaspora.” diaCRITICS. September 1, 2021.
“Reading the Artifacts After the Capitol Riot.” The Paris Review. January 19, 2021.
“Sacred Experiments, Intimate Politics.” The Immanent Frame. June 19, 2024.
“Art Making and Motherhood in the Pandemic Diaspora.” diaCRITICS. September 1, 2021.
“Reading the Artifacts After the Capitol Riot.” The Paris Review. January 19, 2021.