“Shreela was the first poet of color I ever met, the only poet of color I would ever study with . . . and the first ‘real’ poet I personally knew who saw little difference between the political and the personal in her work . . . It was a poetry of historical consequences (or ‘exile,’ as some critics put it), a collision of different (and sometimes harmful) mythologies, but the voice that wielded them was sure, the craft was elegant, and the stage the poems usually played themselves out on was small, personal, unexpected, human.” —CORNELIUS EADY

“Ray’s work—written in a pared down language, somewhat stark, sometimes tart, always sharp—was noted for its urbane and cosmopolitan phrasing, dark wit and the multiple lineages from which it drew. Her lineages include such Indian Anglophone poets as Kamala Das and Eunice De Souza but also the global Anglophone approach to the lyric of Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, or Fleur Adcock. At the same time, Ray’s poetry felt fully ‘American,’ combining a conversational, funny, loving tone with brash bravado, a committed ‘present tense’-ness reminiscent in many ways of second-generation New York School, and deep philosophical inquiry especially in the later lyrics.” —KAZIM ALI