Ravi Shankar: Poet and Professor

Ravi Shankar is Associate Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Central Connecticut State University and founding editor of the international online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat . He has published a book of poems, Instrumentality (Cherry Grove, 2004), named a finalist for the 2005 Connecticut Book Awards, and along with Reb Livingston, a collaborative chapbook, Wanton Textiles (No Tell Books, 2006). His creative and critical work has previously appeared in such publications as The Paris Review, Fulcrum, McSweeney's, the AWP Writer's Chronicle, Scribner’s Best American Erotic Poems from 1800 to the Present, among many others. He has taught at Queens College, University of New Haven, and Columbia University, where he received his MFA in Poetry. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR and Wesleyan Radio and read his work in many places, including the Asia Society, St. Mark's Poetry Project and the National Arts Club. He currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Connecticut Center for the Book, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, is the co-editor of Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co.)