This is a dazzling collection of lyric adventures and experiments. Born in South India and living in the U.S. since her twenties, Murali navigates the cross-currents of contemporary South Indian and Midwest American culture and language.  She explores the ironies and conflicts of living and working in and between those worlds.  These intellectually ambitious and surprising poems—some of them in the form of graphs and figures—investigate the politics of language, dating, and workplace etiquette. This is a new and unforgettable voice—by turns witty, acerbic, compassionate, and comic.

—JENNIFER ATKINSON, Professor at George Mason University and author of The Dogwood Tree, The Drowned City, and Drift Ice

I like this kind of poetry—it has how-to manuals, diagrams and words that are startling and perfect. Non-standardized “Indian/South Indian” English is usually put on display for ridicule and I feel that many of these pieces capture the oft-overlooked aspects of the language that make it so extra-ordinary. One rarely finds it laid out like this–very honest and stripped down but in a humble way. To me, these poems unfold like a city—they are familiar, sad, quietly breathtaking.

—KUZHALI MANICKAVEL, author of Insects are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings & Things We Found During the Autopsy