Million-petalled Flower of Being Here

Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds, to Sri Lankan Tamils. His first book of poems, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. His second, The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) won a Northern Writers Award and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, was shortlisted for both the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Collection and for the 2019 T.S. Eliot Prize. After teaching at the universities of Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham in the UK, he now teaches at Harvard in the US. He is the author of Elizabeth Bishop's Prosaic (Bucknell, 2015), winner of both the University English Prize and the Warren-Brooks Award for Outstanding Literary Criticism. On top of his academic work, he writes literary journalism, and is represented as an author of fiction by the Wylie Agency.

• 11 Today / Aubade12 Sea break / Hazlitt13 Frost / The armchairs14 Learning / Jigsaw15 Riposte / Fiction16 Hail / Nothing can be sole or whole…17 Ceylon / DH118 Our first house / A gift19 You’ve been teaching me / BAME20 Thought experiment / An email21 In this room / Children say the funniest things22 There are things / Sometimes23 Who am I / No24 Leeds / In my father’s room I discover25 Peak District / Clouds, two (Borges feat. Kolatkar)26 Leviathan / That said27 She / She28 The Indian grandfather / John Addington Symonds29 Lingerie / Safe words30 Don’t stop / i.m. Steve Hilton31 Outside the Hanuman temple / I mention it32 Parental advice / Worry33 I’ve noticed something / Conversation34 The fight / Afterwards35 Larkin / The poem of happiness36 Strictly / Titian37 Paatti / Today38 Brexit / Leave39 In the mixed area / Inspiration40 Mercy invincibility / Another side effect41 In my family / Unlike some42 From the window / That hand43 We’re / And so44 from the Tamil / Let45 Dubrovnik / Trust46 My body is a cage / Transition47 Tough mudder / This is not a photograph48 Faraj / It’s a dark49 Whoever you are / Haircut50 My parents and I / My Sri Lankan family51 Swedenborg / Union52 It’s not about you / Barrett/Browning53 In the bubble / The hearing aid54 New Year’s Eve / Driving55 This book / Mother and sister56 The X-Files / Contrarieties57 In films / We’re moving on58 Birmingham / Of justice59 Trying / Artist60 It must be / Spring

Also on the shortlist [for the Forward Prize for Best Collection] is another collection that approaches divisive politics with humanity and warmth: Vidyan Ravinthiran’s The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here. Formally assured but far from formulaic, this book of sonnets for the poet’s wife is testament, at its best, to the ways in which poetry can reach from the particular to the universal. Moving and inviting in their conversational ease, Ravinthiran’s sonnets stretch from the grounding details of life for a mixed-race couple in England today… to thoughtfully touch on themes of identity, class, work and community.