Sri Lankan PoetRamya Chamalie Jirasinghe

Sri Lanka Poet Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe is the author of Rhythm of the Sea, a book on the Asian Tsunami and Trinity, on Trinity College, Kandy. Her book of poetry, There’s an Island in the Bone, will be published this summer in a beautiful handsewn edition in Sri Lanka. She was a runner-up to the UK Guardian Orange First Words Prize of 2009 and the Times of UKonline featured her in its 2009 selection of contemporary war poetry. Ramya was short listed for the Gratiaen Prize for her manuscripts of Poetry in 1998 and 2008. In 2001 she represented Sri Lanka at the Medellin Poetry Festival, Colombia, in South America. She was the winner of the English Writer’s Cooperative’s Poetry Competition in 1997. Her poetry has been published by the Tipton Poetry Journal, The Poetry Journal, and by Osprery, Scotland. Ramya is also a food writer and a panellist for the Miele Guide, Asia’s first independent restaurant guide, published by Ate Media, Singapore.

Sri Lankan Nights in L.A.
by Ramya Chamalie

Crushed curry leaves, pounded cinnamon, dashed lime
And hand carried spices; Colombo to Narita to L.A.;
burst into vapour and swim with flaked tuna
into the centrally heated room.
The hot cutlets conform to the bite.
The wattalappan sits, wobbling gently in the tray,
faithfully oozing Thai condensed coconut milk.
Tables bear the weight of food, authentic recipes,
recreated for the pot-luck party.
Each morsel will soon pass or fail
the diners’ acid test of nostalgia, judged by palate-memories
cleansed by historical amnesia and geographical dislocation.
Soon Mala’s or Sumana’s culinary reputation
will be made or shattered in one gulp.

“It’s great to meet like this.
We must do something,” says Mr. Sumanapala.
So solutions are found to broken boundaries
in Sri Lanka.
Assistance given to those keeping illusions alive
about myths in written texts and the purity of our beginnings,
and the importance of preserving the
‘nation-ness’ of the nation.
“We might go there this summer,” adds Mr. Perera,
“but only if the war situation is not too bad, you know. ”

Tonight, the baila gets feet
stamping, sari-falls waving to comic rhythms:
the kids must see how we lived-it-up during
our Ceylon-days.

But there’s conflict on these shores too.
Picket fences are pushing aside the cinnamon stakes.
Jayasekera’s youngest son had refused to attend.
In some families, daughters are dancing to different tunes.

The cooks are losing control;
new ingredients are falling in.
There’s a dish of heartbreak
simmering on the stove
for those who refuse to stomach
Rosemary with Ambulthial.

Selected Works

3. Poetry

Dave the Potter
A picturebook poem describing the life of the slave potter Dave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Contemporary Poetry of New England
“Contemporary Poetry of New England offers a vivid portrait of a region, its colors and smells, its physical and emotional textures, and the people…. It presents a range of poets, few of whom would call themselves a “region poet,” although each has taken to heart in a private way Frost’s haunting dictum: ‘Locality gives art.’”

--from the Introduction

1. Nonfiction

DJ Kool Herc
The first picturebook biography of the founder of rap and hip hop, DJ Kool Herc!

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s
"Phenomenal."–Howard Zinn "Excellent."–New York Times Book Review

Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem Stomp! is a wonderous new book: it celebrates a time, a place, an energy, and a people who refused to be held back and so they created a culture the entire world is still reeling from.”

--George C. Wolfe, writer, director, and producer of the Public Theater, NYC

2. Fiction

A Brush with Napoleon
A seventeen-year-old is plucked out of the Grande Armee to sit in place of Napoleon for a portrait of the Emperor by the artist David.

Casa Azul
"I felt like a kid reading every word on the page! I liked the strains of "magic realism" coming through in Frida's house! Children will relate to this very much! The story is charming and reads like a thriller." –Margarita Aguilar, Assisant Curator, El Museo del Barrio

4. Middle Grade Series

Xtreme Mysteries
These kids love extreme sports--snowboarding, skateboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding--and are ready to fight when the right to do their sport is threatened.