Raga for the Fallen

“Raga for the Fallen is a body-thundering celebration of our broken and beautiful lives full of myth and music. Vikas Menon reminds us how the smallest gesture—a father’s breath, a mother’s mispronounced word—can bloom into whole constellations of wonder. These poems are a beautiful example of the wild courage it takes to name what we love and what we’ve lost.”
Aimee Nezhukumatathil

“Vikas Menon’s Raga for the Fallen is a soulful remembrance of father, nation, and immigrant journey. I am enamored of these poems, of their braiding of languages, histories, and cultures. Menon’s craft riffles with imagery and diction, both quintessentially western and essentially desi. The result is a decades-spanning epic, a family history and great American novel written in verse that is as revelatory as it is riveting.”
Jaswinder Bolina

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Vikas K. Menon is a poet, playwright and songwriter. His poems have been featured in numerous publications, including the Chicago Quarterly Review and Cortland Review, and anthologies such as The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry. He was a co-writer with Ram Devineni of the first of an innovative series of augmented reality comic books, Priya’s Shakti (www.priyashakti.com), and co-creator of the character Priya. He also co-wrote Feathers of Fire, with Hamid Rahmanian (http://www.kingorama.com/feathersoffire/), which had its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2016 and went on to tour 23 U.S. cities and 6 countries. His other plays have received readings at or been produced by Pratidhwani Theatre, Ruffled Feathers Theater Company, Ingenue Theatre and the Classical Theatre of Harlem. He received his MFA (Poetry) from Brooklyn College and his MA in Literature from St. Louis University. He was an early volunteer, staff member and board member of Kundiman, which is dedicated to nurturing generations of writersand readers of Asian American literature.