PUSHCART-PRIZE WINNING POET

AUTHOR

TRANSLATOR

EDITOR

PROFESSOR

PUSHCART-PRIZE WINNING POET AUTHOR TRANSLATOR EDITOR PROFESSOR

  • Correctional

    Shankar’s bold and complex self-portrait—and portrait of America—challenges us to rethink our complicity in the criminal justice system and mental health policies that perpetuate inequity and harm.

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  • Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess

    Priya Sarrukai Chabria and Ravi Shankar employ a radical method in this translation, breathing new life into this rich classical and spiritual verse by rendering Andal in a contemporary poetic idiom in English. Many of Andal’s pieces are translated collaboratively; others individually and separately. The two approaches are brought together, presenting a richly layered reading of these much-loved classic Tamil poems and songs.

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  • The Golden Shovel Anthology

    The Golden Shovel Anthology is quite simply a brilliant assembly of the work of poets I have admired for years and ones that I have just come to know and admire.

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  • The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1998-2018

    It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.

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  • Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyon

    Language for a New Century celebrates the artistic and cultural forces flourishing today in the East, bringing together an unprecedented selection of works by South Asian, East Asian, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian poets as well as poets living in the Diaspora.

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Ravi Shankar has published over 15 books and chapbooks as author, editor, translator and poet. He has won a Pushcart Prize, a Muse India Translation Award and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner. He has also appeared on radio, podcasts and TV, with the goal of expanding the reach of global literature, breaking down the barriers of discrimination, and reaching new audiences around the world. You can read some of his work, in many genres, which exists online here. Please feel free to write him directly with any thoughts, questions or comments. 

Slide Over
Reading and re-reading Ravi Shankar’s new collection was exhilarating. It’s an extraordinary exploration of the possibilities of collaboration.

Peter Orner, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

Shankar collaborates with both painters and with other contemporary poets by finding the zone and bringing 'new forms of elasticity into being.'

Rae Armantrout, Pulitzer Prize winner

Quirky, quizzical, inquisitive, by turns lyrical and meditative, Ravi Shankar's poems are guided by a strong intelligence toward resolutions that are both surprising and apt.

Gregory Orr, Rockefeller Fellow

Ravi Shankar’s Seamless Matter, when read as a whole, becomes nothing less than a praise song of our shared physicality, and of existence known, as it must be, under the scepter of time.

Jane Hirshfield, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets

Ravi Shankar is a postmodern flâneur. He wanders the world’s real and fictional gridded cities (or perhaps his astral body swoops high above them) and reports back. 

Amy Gerstler, National Book Critics Circle Award winner

It’s the language itself that does the trick—Shankar has a marvelous way of getting sound and phrasing to say both something and themselves.

Cole Swensen, Guggenheim Fellow

What the poets share is a delicate balancing act between a respect for centuries of tradition and the breakneck speed of modern society.

Washington Post

Ravi Shankar knows how to play his chosen instrument, poetry, better than anyone, and he allows the instrument to play its soloist too.

John Tranter, author of Urban Myths, Starlight, and Heart Starter.

Ravi Shankar’s poems are the verbal artifacts of a singular many-sided and distinguished consciousness.

Vijay Seshadri, Pulitizer Prize Winner

Ravi Shankar is now, truly, one of America’s finest younger poets.

Dick Allen, Connecticut Poet Laureate

FEATURED ON

“A brave voyage of discovery, Correctional is a real odyssey, barely making it home after navigating treacherous cultural and psychological waters. Thanks to Shankar’s brilliant writing and admirable honesty, we relive his harrowing, but eventually inspiring, personal saga. And his deep insights into our justice system are alone worth the price of admission.”
— H. Bruce Franklin, author of Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War

Contact

For speaking events, collaborations, or questions — feel free to reach out.

Email: poetravishankar@gmail.com
Tufts English Department: 617-627-3459