The poetry of Arundhathi Subramaniam explore ambivalences such as the yearning for both adventure and anchorage, anchoring and growth, vulnerability and strength, freedom and belonging, withdrawal and involvement, and language as both an exhilarating resource and a desperate haven. These poems explore amazement, fragile elation, obstacles, and rewards along the arduous, perilous journey back to the essence of what it means to be alive and human. When God Is a Traveller is a stunning collection of poems that was named the winner of the first Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize and was nominated for the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize.