Malhotra

“Those poems were where my story sort of fit in to the historical sweep,” she said. “At first, I didn’t understand how they related. But as I continued, I realized that this feeling of being an outsider related to my grandmothers’ histories. Even though we’re Asian-American, we were clearly not from there. I never spoke the language fluently, and we were very carefully watched as a Western family.”

Today Malhotra lives in San Mateo with her husband, who works as an engineer with Google, and their daughters, ages 2 and 4.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and an MFA from the University of Washington; after graduation, she spent several years in Seattle as an adjunct professor teaching writing courses to undergrads. In camp, it’s said, they cut gardens into Arkansas desert, fixed rocks into the flat face of the earth and irrigated bean rows to feed their families. Healthy vines appeared where none should have grown; tiny

That experience, she said, informs her poetry readings, which have attracted readers from the Japanese-American community, women’s studies groups and others. At one recent reading, she said, there were four generations of Japanese-Americans.

Both of her daughters were born while she was writing “Isako Isako.” During the same period, both of her grandmothers died. “Their deaths sort of bookended the writing of the book,” she said.

Lately, Malhotra has returned to lyric prose; her current writings deal with “pregnancy and childbirth — those transformations.”

“I think it’s an extremely exciting time to be a poet,” buds coaxed from the earth, tendrils that spooled runners through dust. When the order came to pack up and return home, the authorities found every curtain drawn shut. Every barrack floor swept clean.

she said. “Where I sit in the poetry world, my work is connected to communities of color — Asian-American poets, refugee or immigrant histories, AfricanAmerican poets innovating with tremendous language and performance. There’s a kind of political and social urgency, and the poets are rallying to speak.

“That’s why I’m excited to move on to the next project. What does it mean to be a woman of color and a mother raising little girls? Those feel like such important questions, and people today are talking about them and thinking them through in poetry.”