Watch #SpokenVerse with Arundhathi Subramaniam, Aditi Angiras, Santa Khurai, Dhiren Borisa & Anukrti Upadhyay 

This month, Firstpost and HarperCollins India streamed #SpokenVerse: a series of online poetry readings featuring five poets — Arundhathi Subramaniam, Aditi Angiras, Santa Khurai, Dhiren Borisa and Anukrti Upadhyay — across five days, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Here’s a look. *** Arundhathi Subramaniam — Poem performed: ‘I Speak for Those with Orange Lunch Boxes’ (Selected from When God Is A Traveller)

Arundhathi Subramaniam is the award-winning author of 12 books of poetry and prose. She has worked over the years as an acclaimed poetry editor, curator and critic. Winner of the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2014 TS Eliot Prize, Subramaniam’s When God Is A Traveller is a remarkable book of poetry. Anukrti Upadhyay — Poem performed: ‘Daay’ (दाय )

Anukrti Upadhyay is a bilingual writer with two short novels in English, Daura and Bhaunri, and a short story collection in Hindi, Japani Sarai, published this year. In her other life, she is a law and finance professional, and a conservation enthusiast. Santa Khurai — Poem performed: ‘My Father’ (Selected from The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia, edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal)

Santa Khurai is a nupi maanbi from Manipur. (‘Nupi maanbi’ can be translated as indigenous Meetei transwoman.) An artist and activist, Santa works with All Manipur Nupi Maanbi Association (AMANA). Aditi Angiras — Poem performed: ‘So Far, So Good’

Aditi Angiras is a poet, writer and artist based in New Delhi. She is the founder of Bring Back the Poets, a queer collective of South Asian poets. With Akhil Kayal, she is the editor of The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia. Dhiren Borisa — Poem performed: ‘Ab Maatam Aur Manaaun Kya’ (Selected from The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia, edited by Aditi Angiras and Akhil Katyal)

Dhiren Borisa is a poet and social geographer based in Delhi. In 2018, he finished his PhD on queer urban cartographies on gay male desires in Delhi at JNU. He writes in English, Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati. He recently finished his Visiting Fellowship at the University of Leicester.