Purvi Shah

Last updated
Purvi Shah
Poets Wash Square NYC Poetry Rally December 20, 2014 39.jpg
Purvi Shah with Ron Villanueva during a rally in Washington Square, New York, in December 2014
Occupationwriter and social justice activist
Genrepoetry
Notable worksTerrain Tracks
Miracle Marks

Purvi Shah is a writer and social justice activist, known for her work to enable language access and advocacy for immigrant survivors of violence. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Career

Shah is the author of three collections of poetry, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), Dark Lip of the Beloved – Sound Your Fiery God-Praise (belladonna*, 2015), and Miracle Marks (Northwestern University Press, 2019). [4] [5] [6] Her debut collection, Terrain Tracks, won the Many Voices Project prize and was nominated for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award in 2007. [7]

Of Miracle Marks, Seema Reza wrote for The Kenyon Review , "Shah traces the links of the chains that bound and continue to bind Indian women into submission and exclusion... Here the use of space is not only aesthetic, but political—the words spread like oil on water, the marks cannot be contained. The miracles compound and morph: woman in pursuit, woman as monster, woman as mark-maker and space-taker. And woman refusing: to offer herself as refuge, as sacrifice, as martyr." [8] She has consulted with the Center for Court Innovation and the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, and authored the 2017 report, "Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People who Abuse." [9] [10] [11] During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, she directed Together We Are New York, a community-based poetry project to highlight Asian American voices. [12] In addition to journals and anthologies, her work is part of public art in Iowa libraries including at Grinnell College. [13] [14]

Awards

Her honors include winning the inaugural SONY South Asian Excellence Award for Social Service in 2008 for her work to end violence against women.

Education

Shah earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, where she won the Virginia Voss Poetry Writing Award, and earned her M.A. in American Literature from Rutgers University. [15] [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> American author (born 1954)

Karen Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Kane</span> English playwright (1971–1999)

Sarah Kane was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eavan Boland</span> Irish poet, author, and professor (1944–2020)

Eavan Aisling Boland was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of women in Irish history. A number of poems from Boland's poetry career are studied by Irish students who take the Leaving Certificate. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Dove</span> American poet and author

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020 she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amrita Pritam</span> Indian writer

Amrita Pritam was an Indian novelist, essayist and poet, who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. A prominent figure in Punjabi literature, she is the recipient of the 1956 Sahitya Akademi Award. Her body of work comprised over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Olds</span> American poet

Sharon Olds is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She teaches creative writing at New York University and is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program at NYU.

Patricia Fargnoli was an American poet and psychotherapist. She was the New Hampshire Poet Laureate from December 2006 to March 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Ortiz Cofer</span> Puerto Rican writer (1952–2016)

Judith Ortiz Cofer was a Puerto Rican author. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the University's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aimee Nezhukumatathil</span> American poet

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is an American poet and essayist. Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sia Figiel</span> Samoan novelist, poet and painter

Sia Figiel is an American contemporary Samoan novelist, poet, and painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meena Alexander</span> Indian poet, scholar, and writer

Meena Alexander was an Indian American poet, scholar, and writer. Born in Allahabad, India, and raised in India and Sudan, Alexander later lived and worked in New York City, where she was a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Randall Mann is an American poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzanne Gardinier</span> American poet

Suzanne Gardinier is an American poet. She is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kundiman (nonprofit organization)</span>

Kundiman is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature. The organization offers an annual writing retreat, readings, workshops, a mentorship program, and a poetry prize, and aims to provide "a safe yet rigorous space where Asian American poets can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora." Kundiman was co-founded in 2004 by Asian American poets Sarah Gambito and Joseph O. Legaspi, and has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Poetry Foundation, the New York Community Trust, Philippine American Writers, PAWA, and individuals.

Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic.

Katie Farris is an American poet, fiction writer, translator, academic and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banira Giri</span> Nepali poet (1946–2021)

Banira Giri was a Nepalese poet and novelist, best known for her novels such as Karagar, Nirbandha and her poetry collections such as Jiwan: Thayamaru, Euta Jiundo Jung Bahadur, etc. In 1999, she received the Sajha Puraskar for her novel, Shabdatit Shantanu, becoming the first woman to win the prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Chang</span> American poet and scholar

Jennifer Chang is an American poet and scholar.

Gwen Benaway is Canadian poet and activist. She is a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

Cheryl Allison Boyce-Taylor is a Trinidadian poet, teaching artist, and theatre performer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Boyce-Taylor has published several full-length poetry monographs including early works As A Woman I Laugh and Cry: Poems, Birthsounds, Rhythms and Other Contractions; five collections of poetry; and an award-winning verse memoir dedicated to her son.

References

  1. Schwartz, John (4 July 2009). "Study Finds Gaps in Aid for Non-English Speakers in State Civil Courts". The New York Times.
  2. "Asylum from Domestic Violence".
  3. "Pakistani Rape Victim Comes to US to Speak Out for Women's Rights".
  4. "Terrain Tracks – New Rivers Press". www.newriverspress.com. January 2006. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  5. "Chaplets | B E L L A D O N N A *". www.belladonnaseries.org. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  6. Staff Writer. "Miracle Marks". nupress.northwestern.edu. Northwestern University Press. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  7. "Terrain Tracks | New Rivers Press". 2006-01-01. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  8. "Poets on Poets: Celebrating New Collections (Part 2) « Kenyon Review Blog". The Kenyon Review. 2020-04-08. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  9. "Purvi Shah | Center for Court Innovation". www.courtinnovation.org. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  10. "Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People who Abuse | Center for Court Innovation". www.courtinnovation.org. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  11. "First Lady Chirlane McCray Announces Groundbreaking City Initiative". The official website of the City of New York. 2018-05-02. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  12. "Together We Are NY". Kundiman. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  13. "Burling Participates in a Public Art Installation Project".
  14. ""Public Writing, Public Libraries"".
  15. "NYC EVENT: Poetry Reading, Slide Show, and Book Signing with Purvi Shah, Apr 3, 2007 @ 12:30pm". Anil Kalhan. 2007-03-25. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  16. "Purvi Shah, Asian American Studies — Hunter College". www.hunter.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2021-05-26.