An Evening of South Asian Poetry

An evening of South Asian Poetry in Pittsburgh! Please join us for an evening of poetry featuring the following poets:

Kandala Singh is a poet, writer and teaching artist from New Delhi, currently living in Pittsburgh. She is the recipient of a Dietrich Fellowship from the University of Pittsburgh, and a 2023 Katherine Bakeless Contributor Award in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her poems appear in Rattle, Eclectica, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Hindustan Times, and Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, among other places. 

Mandal. K. Singh holds a PhD in University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a member of Monroeville Poets since 2014, a board member of Monroeville Public Library (2016-2022), and currently a director of the Gateway School Board, Monroeville (2021-present).

Shaheen Dil is a reformed academic, banker and consultant who now devotes herself to poetry. She was born in Bangladesh, and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her first full-length poetry collection, Acts of Deference, was published in 2016. Her second full-length poetry collection, The Boat-maker’s Art, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2024. Shaheen is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, the DVP/US1 Poets, and the Porch Poets. She holds an AB from Vassar College, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University—leaving campus only when it was absolutely necessary to get a real job.

Tuhin Das is a Bangladeshi poet currently living in Pittsburgh. He is considered by critics to be a significant poet of Generation Zero and began publishing contemporary Bengali literature in 2000. Over the last twenty five years, his poetry criticism articles, short stories, and opinion columns have been published in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. He is the author of nine poetry books in his native language. His life has been deeply impacted by groups who limit freedom of expression. Carnegie Mellon University invited him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a visiting scholar, and City of Asylum invited him to join their writer sanctuary program. He left his home country, Bangladesh, in 2016 and was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 2021. Das’s work has appeared in Words Without Borders, The Bare Life Review, The Offing, Epiphany, and World Literature Today.  In April 2022, Exile Poems: In the Labyrinth of Homesickness, his US poetry debut was published by Pittsburgh based Bridge & Tunnel Books.

Vaishali Paliwal is a poet and artist from India currently residing in Pittsburgh. Her published poetry collections are ‘Lion’s Tooth On Migrating Chests’ (Soap Box Press) and ‘Water Bearer’s Song’ (Finishing Line Press) and her art has been displayed in several art galleries and community events. Inspired by the mystery of human experience and the mysticism behind natural elements, Vaishali explores the pockets of absence in the spectrum of multiple polarities and realities. She likes to create with threads, colors, and things of the earth, and aspires to build model art villages that re-establish harmony between humans and nature.