Avidya

<p><strong>The poems in this collection emerged from journeys of great personal significance, and out of a migrant sensibility tied to three different countries: Sri Lanka, the UK and the USA.</strong> Sensuous, droll, yearning, they consider otherwise forgotten (ignored, repressed, erased) events. </p><br><p>In 2017, Vidyan Ravinthiran travelled to the north of Sri Lanka where his parents grew up - it finally felt safe - visiting war-torn Tamil areas overwritten by a tourist focus on the sun-spoiled South. In 2020, he, his wife and their one-year-old moved from Britain to the United States, months before the pandemic hit and the travel ban separated them for almost two years from family overseas. </p><br><p><em>Avidya</em> is a political and a spiritual collection, whose multiple poetic forms, open and closed, are shaped by myth and philosophy, and by Sri Lankan as well as global crises. It is also a book about the forms of both strength and fear that parents pass on to their children.</p><p><b><i>Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2025</i></b></p>