Selected Publications

Creative and Editorial Publications

Poetry published in The Dirigible Balloon. The Hat” and “Body Strike” 2021.

Selection of nonsense poetry published in Poetry International, alongside works by award-winning poets Marilyn Nelson, Helen Frost, JonArno Lawson, and Calgary’s former Poet Laureate Derek Beaulieu, 2019.

Poetry published in Voicemail Poems, Fall 2019.

Guest editor for a special issue on literary nonsense for Bookbird, the journal for the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). 2015.

The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense, edited by Michael Heyman, with Anushka Ravishankar, and Sumanyu Satpathy. New Delhi: Penguin 2007.

This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse (Scholastic 2012). Editor, and contributor of poems, introduction, and a short story. This is on Kindle. Hardcopy is India only.

Nawdle,” “Do not clothe gentiles in hats of white,” (poems) published in Solstice literary magazine (spring 2015), solsticelitmag.org

Musical adaptation of “Goat’s Tail” (tabla, vocals, production; with Regie Gibson), in Solstice (spring 2015), solsticelitmag.org

Three poems published in 30/30, ed. Nicole Terez Dutton with Tara Betts and Mahogany L. Browne, New York: Penmanship, 2008.

“The Moustache Maharishi” (short story) in The Moustache Maharishi and other unlikely stories, New Delhi: Scholastic, 2007.

Introduction to Favourite Funny Poems, New Delhi: Scholastic, 2007.

“It’s Hot!”(short story), in The Puffin Book of Bedtime Stories. New Delhi: Puffin, 2005. This story has also been reprinted in the fiction writing chapter of Get Smart! Writing Skills: Sharpen Your Writing Skills Become and Ace Writer (Puffin 2009).

Academic Publications


“BreakBeat and the New Auditory Avant-garde–for Children! (Or, That New-fangled Noise the Kids Are All Going On About),” with Joseph T. Thomas, Jr., a chapter in A Companion to Children’s Literature. Eds. Karen Coats, Deborah Stevenson, and Vivian Yenika-Agbaw. Wiley-Blackwell, 2022.

“Musical Foundations of Nonsense,” a chapter for The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense, edited by James Williams and Ana Barton, Edinburgh University Press, 2021.

“Literary Nonsense as Enactment of Alan Watts’ Philosophy: ‘Not Just Blathering Balderdash’” a chapter in The Relevance of Alan Watts in Contemporary Culture: Understanding Contributions and Controversies. Ed. Peter J. Columbus. Routledge, 2021.

“ ‘That Terrible Bugaboo’: The Role of Music in Poetry for Children,” a chapter in The Aesthetics of Children’s Poetry. Eds. Katherine Wakely-Mulroney and Louise Joy, Routledge, 2018.

Pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks: Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories and the tall tale,” in The European Journal of Humour Research. Vol. 5, No. 3. (2017): 56-67.

The Perils and Nonpereils of Literary Nonsense Translation,” Words Without Borders, 2014. Online.

Roses are planted where thorns grow”: The 2012 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry,” collaboration with Joseph Thomas, Jr. and Michael Joseph, The Lion and the Unicorn (Journal), Fall 2012.

The City, the Country, and the Road Between: The 2011 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry,” collaboration with Joseph Thomas, Jr. and Michael Joseph, The Lion and the Unicorn (Journal), Fall 2011

“Nonsense,” co-authored with Kevin Shortsleeve, in Keywords for Children’s Literature, eds. Philip Nel and Lissa Paul (New York: New York University Press, 2011)

“It’s (Not) All Small Stuff: The 2009 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry,” collaboration with Joseph Thomas, Jr. and Angela Sorby, The Lion and the Unicorn (Journal), Fall 2010

“Lively Rigor: The 2008 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry,” collaboration with Joseph Thomas, Jr. and Angela Sorby, The Lion and the Unicorn (Journal), Fall 2009

Anushka Ravishankar’s Indian Nonsense”, Horn Book Magazine, (Nov/Dec. 2006)

“The Performative Letter, from Medieval to Modern” in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (Spring 2005)

“The Decline and Rise of Literary Nonsense in the Twentieth Century,” Children’s Literature and the Fin de Siecle, ed. Roderick McGillis. (Greenwood, 2004)

“The Original Interactive Multimedia Game: Edward Lear’s Literary Nonsense.” in The Five Owls. 15.4 (2001): 81-84. Web.

“A New Defense of Nonsense; or, ‘Where then is his phallus?’ and other questions not to ask” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 24.4. (1999)