Earthly Gods: A Poetry Reading with Jessica Nirvana Ram

Join us in welcoming local poet Jessica Nirvana Ram to read from her debut poetry collection, Earthly Gods (Variant Literature, Sept. 2024), a book about expectations and the search for the definition of holy.

“[Jess Ram] wields sensation—color, flavor, sound—like a painter,” writes author of Lo Melissa Crowe, “and she wields emotion just as deftly, moving in a few lines from gratitude to loss, from longing to sorrow, from pain to praise. The world is somehow made more vivid and arresting in these gorgeous, gripping poems, and as we read them, we are nodding and crying, we are laughing and snapping, newly aware of the richness and complexity of our own lives. This is a lush and layered debut, meant to be savored, in service of anyone who ever tried to figure out how to honor their inheritance and go their own way.”

H&H is excited to celebrate Jessica and her beautiful debut. She will read from Earthly Gods and then offer time at the end of the reading for Q&A and book signing!

About the Author

Jessica Nirvana Ram is an Indo-Guyanese, first generation, daughter of immigrants who is grappling with the expectations of the world around her. Jessica Nirvana Ram is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington MFA program. Her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Prairie Schooner, amongst others. Earthly Gods was a National Poetry Series finalist and poems from the collection have won the 2020 AWP Intro Journals Prize as well as the Prairie Schooner Jane Geske Award. Jessica currently works as the Publicity and Outreach Manager for the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts. She lives and writes in Lewisburg, PA. You can find her website here.

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