This year at the Chippewa Valley Book Festival, from Oct. 21 to Oct. 25, there will be a new poetry anthology introduced, which highlights the lives of South Asian women through their writing.
In this anthology, 68 poets from South Asian countries came together to contribute to the book “Sing, Slivered Tongue,” which was published in May 2025. Represented countries include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and their diasporas.
Co-editors Dr. Lopamudra Basu and Dr. Feroza Jussawalla captured the voices of many South Asian women through not only their trauma but also their courage.
“There are very few collections of contemporary poetry, especially those written by women,” Basu said.
She said this is one of the main reasons she wanted to focus on amplifying women’s voices in this anthology.
Basu is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, the author of “Ayad Akhtar, the American Nation and its Others After 9/11: Homeland Insecurity” and the co-editor of “Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander.”
Jussawalla is an English professor at the University of New Mexico and is the author of “Chiffon Saris” and “Family Quarrels: Towards a Criticism of Indian Writing in English.”
Born in separate regions of India, Basu and Jussawalla have many different experiences and cultural practices to tie the anthology to. They take inspiration from their upbringing to guide the poetry throughout the story.
At the event held by the Chippewa Valley Book Festival, there will be selections from the book read by four different authors. Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, Anuja Ghimire, Zilka Joseph and Mary Anne Mohanraj will all be attending the event virtually to read from the book.
Some of the main focuses within the anthology are women’s experiences with political and domestic violence. Many different conflicts contribute to this violence, most notably the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the Sri Lanka Civil War and the ongoing conflict in Kashmir.
“We wanted to include a range of life experiences from women who are still young and at the beginning of their poetic journeys to those who are acknowledged experts in the field with numerous accolades and publications,” Basu said.
Basu and Jussawalla sought people not only of Indian descent but also from the neighboring regions. Emphasis was put on finding people of different backgrounds and beliefs, according to Basu.
“We tried to include experiences of marginalization from the perspectives of economic precarity, caste, sexual orientation and other non-dominant aspects of identity,” Basu said.
Other forms of trauma are also encapsulated in this anthology through descriptions of grief, dissolution of marriages, caregiving for elderly family members and widespread COVID lockdowns.
“The poems in our anthology are not just an expression of a litany of women’s suffering,” Basu said, “what unites them is the common quest for healing and the quest for justice.”
The event, “Poetry and Trauma: South Asian Women’s Voices Across Nations,” will take place at the Chippewa Valley Book Festival from 6 to 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24 in the Riverview Room of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.
Trnka can be reached at [email protected].
