Writer, artist and founder of the Mumbai-based non-profit Brain Bristle, Devangana Mishra has released Desierto Florido: Poetry for Parched Lands, her first full poetry collection. The release marks a new chapter for performance and play for the Mumbai-based author, whose verse novel 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi was published in 2023.
Key Takeaways
● Desierto Florido: Poetry for Parched Lands is Devangana Mishra’s debut poetry and art book.
● Her last full collection was an art and verse novel set in pre-independence India, 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Delhi.
● The newest collection takes its name from Chile’s “flowering desert,” when dormant seeds bloom after rare rain.
● This book was launched with readings across Mumbai, where the author lives and works.
● Her next book, the novel May I Bombay?, is expected to follow.
A Collection Named for a Rare Bloom
Poetry for Parched Lands
The title refers to the Desierto Florido, the natural phenomenon in Chile’s Atacama Desert in which one of the driest places on earth erupts into fields of wildflowers after unusual rainfall. Mishra uses the image as the collection’s guiding idea: that renewal is practice, and that parched lands, the literal and the inner, can both bloom when the conditions are kept kind.
Painterly, brief and generous, the collection reads in a single sitting and lingers considerably longer. Its poems move among history, love, falling apart, falling together, and time, written in the spare, abundant, observant voice readers first encountered in her verse novel.
A Distinct Voice in Indian Letters
Devangana brings an unusual biography to her poetry. A dual Master’s graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, she is the founder of Brain Bristle, a Mumbai non-profit building autism inclusion across the city’s low-income schools. She was a representative at the World Economic Forum in Davos and has spent nearly two decades designing inclusive learning systems across India, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the United States.
That crossover between the imagination that writes and performs a poem and the attentiveness that pulls together a classroom has become a signature of the interplay between her public and private life, and it also runs quietly beneath these poems.
What else is in store?
The collection is written in a way to exude the architectural joy of poetry, of it being recited and sung. As the book opens, Poetry was what one heard recited when passing by women as they bathed children in communal baths, war cries of men to their armies and notes to their loved ones before departure, likely because the repetition, rhythm, and a quick plunge into the cello-strung, poignant, profound, playful waters would make it easier to remember, be splashed and absorbed.
The book of poetry will feature workshops, recitations, and readings across the country, in preparation for the release of her next novel, May I Bombay?, out in 2027.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Desierto Florido?
Desierto Florido: Poetry for Parched Lands is the debut poetry collection by Devangana Mishra, named after the rare flowering of Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Who is Devangana Mishra?
She is a writer, poet, artist, and the founder of Brain Bristle, a Mumbai non-profit for autism inclusion. Her verse novel 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi was released in 2023.
What is the collection about?
The poems explore renewal, memory, love and time, held together by the image of a desert that blooms when conditions allow.
Where can readers find the book?
Details on readings and availability are available on the author’s website at https://linktr.ee/devangana.mishra and on her Instagram, @devangana_m.
What work of art is Devangana best known for?
Devangana has been writing and teaching across neurodiversity, inclusion, arts, and literature for a long time now, but her first independent literary work was her verse novel, 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Delhi, published in 2023.
