Behind Dark Waters

These are fierce poems, Amazonian in their reach which challenges male territory and waterfalls but further challenges young women to find their warrior selves. Transgression, tresspass and daring are vital in them. However, the anguish of being female is just as vigorously their property. Read "Cartographer of the Breast."
Karen Swenson, author of Landlady in Bangkok and A Daughter's Latitude: New and Selected Poems
Venkateswaran's second collection outstrips her first in many ways: it is substantial in volume and contains a wider range of subjects and themes; external events, geographies, and mythologies collide with interior reckonings to pose poetic epiphanies; as often as not, the poems pirouette on the dance floor of the page. This is overall a thoughtful, witty, dramatic, and provocative collection.
Saleem Peeradina, author of The Ocean in My Yard, Group Portrait, and Meditations on Desire