Naming The Lines in Our Palms After Rivers is a sapphic South Asian poetry anthology created + edited by Sukhpreet Purewal and designed by Anika Huda. The anthology features 28 poets from across the globe: Amira Zara, N. Gitanjali Lena, anjali, Coco C. Shah, Sophia Bano, Mahari Bennett, Ahalia Persaud, Dil Singh, Vriddhi Vinay, Z. Yasmin Waheed, Shivanee Ramlochan, ambika n, Dheivanai Moorthy, Myrfei, Nandani Felicia Devi, Srishti, Sanch Kay, Purbasha Roy, Pravy Jha, Raitah Jinnat, Nasha Minoo, dagger, Zahra Haider, Anju M Kasturiraj, Nikita David, puer deorum, Sukhpreet Purewal and Anika Huda.

This book is an extension of a virtual poetry workshop created for South Asian Sapphic writers that Sukhpreet facilitated from Summer to Winter of 2025. Sukhpreet identified six themes and sourced, researched and compiled poetry from queer South Asian writers relating to each theme. They facilitated interpretation, critique, analysis, and also provided creative writing prompts for participants to respond to with their personal writing. Anika Huda designed a 27-page guidebook including this information plus six illustrations for the themes. This guidebook was provided to participants to use for reference for the entire duration of the course, from July to December 2025.

The anthology will include 51 total poems, including visual elements such as photography and painting. We accepted writers from a digital open call along with several participants from the mentioned workshop. The intention of this workshop — creating the anthology and community programming — is to increase the artistic presence of queer South Asian, diasporic South Asian, Indo-Caribbean and those who come from indentured lineages. There are not many anthologies of this kind in existence that create solidarity networks and threads of connection across the subcontinent and its diasporic satellites. We feel honored to bring this into the world as a tangible, visual literary archive and container for collective memory.

In tandem with the book release for this anthology, we plan to host release parties, readings, eco-immersive and educational activations across the locations that writers live in.

Anika and Sukhpreet are publishing this book fully independently!

This fund aims to cover -

production costs (design, printing, shipping from the printer), writer honorariums, editing fees, and event costs as we plan out book release dates.

Your support helps make this possible and uplifts the work and livelihood of queer South Asian artists.

Donations of $40+ include a pre-order copy of the printed anthology (excluding shipping) and a digital PDF of the guidebook that was created during the poetry workshop. The guidebook includes curated poetry, creative writing prompts, and illustrations from Anika.

Thank you so much for reading and donating!

Naming The Lines in Our Palms After Rivers

a sapphic South Asian poetry anthology

Team Members