Betweenness

Varun Ravindran's full-length debut,Betweenness, is poetic polyphony and counterpoint. Formally inventive, at times layering multiple voices, and at other points, implementing sheet music as poetic form, Ravindran explores spirituality; his experience as an immigrant existing in the peripheries of both Indian and American culture, but part of neither; and of history, as he speaks on his late father and grandafther, both of whom struggled with alcoholism until their deaths. Accumulating into chords and intervals, these poems unite in a song of self that contains multitudes of voice and of form. Piece-by-piece they are hyaline and complex, while the affect of the whole crescendoes into an authentic and important new voice in American poetry. 

Varun Ravindran was born in Chennai, India, and graduated from Duquesne University. His work has appeared in various literary journals like The Kenyon Review Online, The Adroit Journal, West Branch, Notre Dame Review, FOLIO, Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, and mercury firs, among others. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.