RAVI SHANKAR is the producer/founding editor of Drunken Boat, International Online Journal of Arts and Literature. His first volume of poetry, Instrumentality, was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry in 2005. He has read his work in many venues, including the National Arts Club, the Asia Society, and Columbia University and has served as a commentator on National Public Radio. He has received the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize and a New York State Council for the Arts grant. He recently co-edited an anthology, Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East, and Beyond (2008),, featuring 400 poets writing in 40 different languages.