New poetry collection from Parvinder Mehta, Ph.D

Drawn from a conglomeration of emotions evoked by pain, trauma, injustice, loss as well as reflections from acceptance, love, forgiveness, and affirmation, Parvinder Mehta's debut poetry collection recalls the experiences of a diasporic subject.

Early praise:

A refreshing new voice in South Asian diasporic poetry, Parvinder Mehta writes passionately about her Sikh faith, her identity as an academic, a mother, an immigrant, and a woman of color. These poems are united by their focus on social justice as they examine sectarian and racist violence against Sikhs in India and in the United States. The poems celebrate resilience and seek hope in community, memories, and faith. -Nalini Iyer, Professor of English, Seattle University, USA.

With her debut volume of poems, On Wings of Words, scholar Parvinder Mehta joins the growing community of South Asian poets in North America. Many of Mehta’s poems are responses to personal and political situations faced by members of the Sikh faith in India, the U.S., and elsewhere, but her poems are much more than just Sikh poems. They explore a wide variety of moods, stances, and experiences that are broadly human, even existential. - Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio University,USA.

Reading Parvinder Mehta, an emerging poet of the Sikh diaspora and an accomplished scholar and teacher, I recalled the words of my mentor—guru in her cultural framework—William Carlos Williams: “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet [people] die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” Parvinder Mehta’s poetry is necessary and affirmative in addressing the truth of poetry to what people die miserably every day of. She finds her examples ready to hand in the experiences of displacement and the historic persecution of the ethnic Sikhs in India and now in the United States. What convinces in her work is the steadfast unfolding of a nuanced voice, between American and subcontinental ways of speaking and rhythm, that builds power in comprehending and affirming—more than mere witnessing—the experiences she has emerged from, continues to name precisely, bringing the reader to awareness, fusing diasporic displacement with everyday life. - Professer Barrett Watten, Wayne State University, USA.