Preeti Vangani returns to the body in her sophomore collection, ‘Fifty Mothers’
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In this intimate and powerful episode of The Right Question, host Lauren Korn engages poet Preeti Vangani in a deep conversation about her sophomore poetry collection, '50 Mothers,' a lyrical exploration of grief, identity, motherhood, and embodiment. Vangani reflects on how her mother’s death from breast cancer—compounded by patriarchal medical neglect—reshaped her understanding of loss, healing, and selfhood. She traces the evolution from her debut collection, 'Mother Tongue,' to '50 Mothers,' revealing how time, distance from India, and personal transformation allowed her to reframe grief not as a monolithic sorrow but as a dynamic, capacious experience that can hold joy, rebellion, and erotic awakening. Through candid storytelling and two haunting poems—'One Mother Said' and 'The Cremation I Wasn't Allowed to Attend'—Vangani illustrates how grief and sexuality are not opposites but intertwined dimensions of a life lived deeply. She also shares vivid memories of her mother, Pooja Vangani (née Bhagwanti Bachani), a woman of quiet strength, creativity, and fierce love, whose legacy lives on in both absence and presence.
Grief is not a linear process but a changing terrain—what feels like a trench today may become a space of unexpected calm and clarity tomorrow.
Healing often emerges from unanticipated places: physical spaces, silence, and even joy, not just from mourning.
Motherhood can be reclaimed as self-care—'raising a mother' becomes an act of self-nurturing, especially when the literal mother is gone.
Sexuality and grief are not opposites; they can coexist as parallel forms of embodiment and emotional release.
The body holds memory—physical pain, pleasure, and loss are all part of a continuous narrative of survival and expression.
…and 3 more takeaways available in PodZeus
The Power of a Question
Lauren Korn opens the episode with deep appreciation for a thoughtful question, setting a reflective tone for the conversation with poet Preeti Vangani.
Introducing '50 Mothers': Grief, Sex, and Embodiment
Korn introduces Vangani and her new collection, emphasizing its exploration of grief, chronic illness, and sexuality, and how these themes evolve from her debut work.
The Shifting Nature of Grief: Calm from Unexpected Places
“Grief is like, I think this very humbling teacher because it teaches you about your own vulnerabilities and how they change, how they become more intense. But also it has this... wonderful. I think it's like, it really is the passing of time, which has this wonderful quality of showing me how you have to do so little to kind of come back to the surface.”
From 'Mother Tongue' to '50 Mothers': The Evolution of a Poet
Vangani traces her journey from corporate life in Bombay to studying poetry in San Francisco, explaining how her identity and artistic focus evolved between her two collections.
Reclaiming Grief: Joy, Abundance, and the Politics of Expression
“I was insistent in the making of these poems that I was very tired of elegies being one note in terms of just processing sadness, and I wanted to invite joy and wonder into them.”
“My body bent and spent. My body a fist of her ash, a gash from fisting. What else could I do but keep on disappearing?”
“Penetration, my first stage of grief.”
“Grief is like, I think this very humbling teacher because it teaches you about your own vulnerabilities and how they change, how they become more intense. But also it has this... wonderful. I think it's like, it really is the passing of time, which has this wonderful quality of showing me how you have to do so little to kind of come back to the surface.”
Host
Guest
50 Mothers
book
Preeti Vangani
person
Lauren Korn
person
Bhagwanti Bachani
person
Bombay
place
Mother Tongue
book
Pooja Vangani
person
San Francisco
place
Ramolin
brand
Ahmedabad
place
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