The Natural Language of Grief is in essence, crepuscular: looking at dimness. In this collection of poems, language looks intentionally at the dimness of the pandemic era, the twilight faced by planet earth in the face of the raging climate crisis and the regular existential questions that we grapple with on a daily basis. The Natural Language of Grief seeks, also, to be a conduit of hope and a better tomorrow; a visage of the poet’s experiences in the vast universe we all inhabit.
“A beautiful achievement. Her poems speak up for humanity.”
—Ruth Padel, Professor of Poetry, King’s College London.
“These finely wrought poems teach us how to redeem ourselves from isolation, through the enlargement of spirit and senses that follows, once we learn how to craft forms of solidarity with our neighbours, across classes, races, species and seasons, on this planet.”
—Ranjit Hoskote, Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, Ashoka University.
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Vinita Agrawal
VINITA AGRAWAL is an award winning poet, an editor, translator and curator of literary events, based in Indore, India. The Natural Language of Grief is a Winner of the Proverse Prize 2021. Her poetry collections to date are: Two Full Moons (Bombaykala Books, 2018), The Silk Of Hunger (AuthorsPress, 2015), The Longest Pleasure (FinishingLinePress. 2014), and Words Not Spoken (Brown Critique, 2013). Individual poems have appeared in Mascara Review, Human Obscura, The Global South, Amphibian, Fox Chase Review, Indian Quarterly, Asian Cha, Tiger Moth Review and Punch Magazine, among many others. She was joint recipient of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2018 and winner of the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence, USA, 2015. She was awarded a prize in the Proverse Poetry prize 2018 and achieved special mention in the Hawkers Prize 2019. Her poems have twice won first prize at Hour of Writes. She won the Wordweavers Poetry contest in 2014 and first prize in the Architectural Poetry Competition, 3rd Cycle – Improvisation 2021. Her work was shortlisted for the inaugural Dipankar Khiwani Memorial prize 2021. Vinita edited Open Your Eyes (Hawakal)—an anthology on climate change—and the memoire-anthology, Nazki: The poet from Kashmir (A tribute to Mir Ghulam Rasool Nazki) (Ink Links, 2021). She co-edited the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English (Hawakal, 2021, 2022) and is Poetry Editor with Usawa Literary Review. She has curated literary events for PEN@Prithvi, Mumbai and for Ruminating Poetry on the Kritya online platform. Vinita was featured in a documentary on twenty women poets from Asia, Deepest Uprising, directed by Huang Ming-Chuan, produced in Taiwan, and released in 2021. Agrawal is on the Advisory Board of the Tagore Literary Prize and on the Global Judging Panel of the SheInsprawrds. She is a keen birder and an amateur photographer.
