Visiting Poet Raena Shirali

Indian American poet Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017; winner of the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award), an experimental collection grappling with standards created by an invisible system and enforced by family, relationships, and violations of women’s rights in a reckoning of intersectional identity. 

Raena has performed at such venues as: the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center in NYC, Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab, Slam Free or Die, College of Charleston, and many more. She gives craft talks on the political weight of poetic endings, highlighting voices of color, immigrant, and contemporary voices.

Born in Texas and raised in South Carolina, Raena now lives in Philadelphia, where she is a freelance editor for TellTell Poetry, a Poetry Editor for Muzzle Magazine, and a Poetry Reader for Vinyl. Shirali recently co-organized We (Too) Are Philly, an all-POC summer poetry festival in Philadelphia.

college of arts and sciencescreative writingenglishfaculty