Overview

Trespassing My Ancestral Lands is a deeply resonant poetic journey through varied landscapes of emotion, cultural history, and self-discovery. It delve into the complexities of the immigrant experience and the loss of native identity, blending themes like human grief, the duality of love, the impact of war, and the cycles of existence. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis masterfully intertwines the personal with the universal, offering a unique voice that speaks to the core of human experience. The book invites readers to profoundly engage with the text, offering a space for introspection and understanding. It's a book that is expected to leave a lasting impact, remembered for its emotional depth, cultural relevance, and poetic mastery.

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Reviews

"Trespassing My Ancestral Lands captures the poet's eye roving the landscapes to see and discover the many layers of self in a multi-layered world of family, nature, and cycles of life. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis' voice is a hypnotic opera of cautionary tales. These heart-wrenching poems burn and sing to understand the primordial codes and rituals we depend on to give our lives meaning. An astute observer of the smallest details, she grips us with the travails of having feet firmly planted on both sides of the worlds and cultures. This brave poet walks the precipice and captures the testimonials of human grief, the dangers of love, loss, and war. Singh-Chitnis creates a voluminous experience of color and imagery rendering the mystical traditions and the hope in chaos. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis blows the shofar and shows how the power of language and story can lift us from despair, to reclaim our passions and our ghosts, the only way poetry can. This collection is indelible, you will come back again and again to a Motherland of wisdom-a talisman and guide to living with the fullest of fire and breath. Cynthia Atkins, author of Still-Life with God Reader, if what you seek is an illusion, phantoms and figments of imagination written in fleeting, figurative language, then move on. Seeker, if what you wish to read is real, fleshed-out through direct, honorable verses which linger without pretentiousness, then don't pass by this book. ""If you are a woman,"" Ms. Singh-Chitnis sings, ""tell my story to your sons. If you are a man, tell it to your daughters. If you are a preacher, teach it as a sermon to the believers."" Here is a Human Being speaking equally to all other Human Beings, one who ""trespasses,"" too, across limitations of gender, ethnicity, nationality; whose story thus becomes a story worth telling, and retelling, and retelling again. For in the poem, ""The Salt of a Woman,"" as she writes so sublimely, ""Her story is much older than her civilization..."" The story found in Trespassing My Ancestral Lands, is in fact as old as Creation itself. Jennifer Reeser, author of Indigenous and Strong Feather I would like to stand on street corners asking people to read Trespassing My Ancestral Lands. The enduring necessity of this collection of poetry far exceeds the ordinary every day and as such, I would wish it to be widely shared. Very infrequently, in my role as editor, I come across a collection that blows me away. Figuratively, literally, and spiritually. Singh-Chitnis is a deeply modern writer, who dips her pen in ancient history and acknowledgment of what came before us. She blends these disparate worlds together in such a way we learn and grow with each insight. This is the sheer essence of a poet, to be both translator and third-eye for the reader. When we are unable to articulate our feelings, the poet can. Singh-Chitnis has an uncanny canary-in-a-coal-mine prescience that feels at times like she's reading our minds. If a poet cannot speak for her readers, she's stuck in a confessional style that grows dusty with time. To stay alive long after her physical form has passed, she must transcend time and space and be the mouthpiece for our deepest fears and joys. I would go as far as saying if you don't like poetry, you might well be converted by this poetry because it's poetry, and it's more than poetry. She will be a poet we talk about in two hundred years. Her name won't simply be synonymous with good writing, it will be a legacy. Candice Louisa Daquin, Senior Editor / Indie Blu(e) Publishing and author of Tainted by the Same Counterfeit among others"

Author Information

"Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is an Indian-American poet, writer, filmmaker, and author of six poetry collections. Her works have appeared in notable journals such as World Literature Today, Columbia Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Cold Mountain Review, Indian Literature, Vsesvit, Silk Routes (IWP) at The University of Iowa, and Stanford University's Life in Quarantine. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis has been referenced in renowned publications such as the New York Times and Huffington Post, and featured in The Telegraph, OC Register, Los Angeles Times, Daily Pilot, and others. She has made appearances on major broadcasting platforms like ABC Channel 7, Voice of America, Fox News, India's National TV Network, Doordarshan, KPFK Radio, and various additional television and radio networks. Her poetry has been translated into twenty languages and has been included in college and university curricula in India and in the UK.Her bilingual poetry collection Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava, translated into Ukrainian by Volodymyr Tymchuk, a poet and Lieutenant Colonel of The Armed Forces of Ukraine, was honored as a finalist in the 2023 ""International Book Awards"" presented by American Book Fest. Additionally, Sunflowers: Ukrainian Poetry on War Resistance, Hope, and Peace, an anthology curated and edited by her was named a finalist in the 2023 ""National Indie Excellence Awards.""Kalpna's poetry has received praise from eminent writers, such as Nobel Prize in Literature nominee Dr. Wazir Agha, Vaptsarov Award and Ordre des Arts et des Lettres recipient Amrita Pritam, and poet and Academy Award-winning lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar. She has read at the International Literature Festival Berlin (ilb), Sahitya Akademi, India's highest academy of letters, AWP Conferences, Poets & Writers, and other venues internationally.As a filmmaker, she is known for her feature film Goodbye My Friend, short film Girl With An Accent and her environmental film The Tree, based on her work of poetry. Her films have garnered multiple awards at international film festivals, including the ""Silver Award"" for her short film Girl With An Accent and the ""Best Experimental Short Film Award"" at the North Dakota Environmental Rights Film Festival.She has been nominated for a pushcart prize, and her awards and honors include the 2017 ""Naji Naaman Literary Prize for Creativity,"" the ""Bihar Rajbhasha Parishad Award,"" given by the government of Bihar, India, ""Bihar Shri,"" and the ""Rajiv Gandhi Global Excellence Award."" Poems from her award-winning book Bare Soul and her poetry film River of Songs, included in the Nova Collection and the Polaris Collection archived in the Lunar Codex time capsule, landed on the moon with Odysseus, in a joint mission of NASA, SpaceX, and Intuitive Machines in 2024. A former lecturer of Political Science and Editor-in-Chief of Life and Legends, she works as an independent filmmaker in Hollywood and serves as an Advocacy Member at the United Nations Association of the USA.Website: www.kalpnasinghchitnis.com"

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