Meena Alexander : Indian American poet, Google Doodle & Biography of who was known for her poems

Meena Alexander Google Doodle is Celebrating Meena Alexander. Meena Alexander was an Indian American poet, scholar, and writer, who was known for her work exploring migration and identity. Google is celebrating Meena Alexander with doodle and short biography. On 1 May 2019, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, to which Alexander frequently contributed, honored her life and legacy.

Meena Alexander was an American poet and scholar. Alexander was born in 1951 in Allahabad, India. Her family home was in Kerala, but she spent most of her childhood in Sudan where her father was stationed as a visiting meteorologist. She excelled in school and began writing poems in both English and French. Alexander later lived and worked in New York City, where she was a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

At only 13, Alexander enrolled at the University of Khartoum. Although she couldn’t read Arabic, a local newspaper translated and published some of her poems. Alexander graduated with a degree in English and French and then pursued a PhD in England. She returned to India with a doctorate in British Romantic literature. While writing poetry, Alexander held faculty positions in Delhi and Hyderabad.

In 1979, Alexander moved to New York to work as an assistant professor at Fordham University. She went on to become Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

Among her early books, the novel Nampally Road (1991) explored Alexander’s experiences and feelings in modern India. She published many well-received poetry collections, including Illiterate Heart (2002) and Raw Silk (2004). With her signature cross-cultural perspective, Alexander dissected trauma and migration.

Alexander’s poetry and books have been translated into Malayalam, as well as Hindi, Urdu, German, Swedish, Arabic and Spanish. Illiterate Heart won the PEN Open Book Award in 2002. Her contributions to American literature earned her the Distinguished Achievement Award from the South Asian Literary Association. Her artful command of language continues to inspire poets to this day.

Influences on her writing include Jayanta Mahapatra, Kamala Das, Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, and Galway Kinnell, as well as Toru Dutt, Lalithambika Antherjanam, Sarojini Naidu, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, Leslie Marmon Silko, Assia Djebar, Edouard Glissant, Nawal El Sadaawi, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. In 2014, she discussed the influence of John Donne, John Berryman, Emily Dickinson, and Matsuo Bashō on her work.

Fellowships and residencies
During the course of her career, Alexander was a University Grants Commission Fellow at Kerala University, Writer in Residence at the National University of Singapore, and a Frances Wayland Collegium Lecturer at Brown University.She also held the Martha Walsh Pulver Residency for a poet at Yaddo. In addition:

1979 Visiting fellow at the University of Paris-Sorbonne
1988 Center for American Culture Studies, Columbia University, Writer in Residence
1993 MacDowell Colony fellow
1994 American College, Madurai, India, Poet in Residence
1995 Arts Council of England, International Writer in Residence
1995 Intercultural Resource Center, Columbia University, Artist/Humanist In Residence
1995 Minnesota Asian American Renaissance, Lila Wallace Writer in Residence
2003 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency
2008 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow
2011 Fulbright Specialists Program
2014 National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
2016 Poet in Residence in Venice

Fault Lines, her memoir, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 1993, and her poetry collection Illiterate Heart won the 2002 PEN Open Book Award.In 2002, she was awarded the Imbongi Yesizwe Poetry International Award. She was the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award from the South Asian Literary Association for contributions to American literature.In 2016, she received a Word Masala award from the Word Masala Foundation.On May 1, 2024, she was honored with a Google Doodle.