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Shirani Rajapakse

Goodreads Author

Born

in Colombo , Sri Lanka

Website

https://shiranirajapakse.wordpress.com

Twitter

https://twitter.com/shiraniraj

Genre

Poetry, Fiction, Ebooks

Member Since

August 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/shiranirajapakse

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Shirani Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan poet and short story writer.

She is the author of three collections of short stories and three books of poetry.
Short Stories
"Breaking News" (2011, 2018) -shortlisted for the 2010 "Gratiaen Award",
"I Exist. Therefore I Am" (2018) – winner of the 2019 "State Literary Awards" and shortlisted for the 2019 "Rubery Book Awards", and,
"Gods, Nukes and a Whole Lot of Nonsense" (2021) winner of the 2022 "State Literary Awards.

Poetry.
"Chant of a Million Women" (2017) won the 2018 "Kindle Book Awards", was chosen as an 'Official Selection' in the 2018 "New Apple Summer eBook Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing" and received an Honorable Mention in the 2018 "Readers’ Favorite Awards".
"Fallen Leaves" was pu ...more

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Shirani Rajapakse’s books

Average rating: 3.85 · 387 ratings · 70 reviews · 11 distinct works

	Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World by James Thomas (Editor), Robert Shapard (Editor), Christopher Merrill (Editor) 3.77 avg rating — 387 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Song Of Sahel by Niamh Clune (Goodreads Author) (Foreword & Editor), Shirani Rajapakse (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Sue Lobo (Contributor) 4.88 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I Exist. Therefore I Am really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2018 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Chant of a Million Women 4.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Very Best of Steve Carr by Grant P. Hudson (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Steve Carr, Ger White (Contributor) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Samsara 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2022 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gods, Nukes and a Whole Lot of Nonsense 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fallen Leaves it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Breaking News really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Catastrophe and Environment 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Shirani Rajapakse's Blog

Writing in a Woman’s Voice – March 11, 2023

“In a Room Up in the Sky”, another poem from Samsara is featured today in Writing in a Woman’s Voice.

Writing In A Woman’s Voice

Saturday, 11 March 2023

In a Room Up in the Sky

by Shirani Rajapakse

A plane flew into her face.
It happened many years ago,
but she still remembers
like it was last week. The plane
rose in the air
and took a turn towards
the building she was in. Then it dived in.

She was dr

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Shirani’s Recent Updates

Shirani Rajapakse wrote a new blog post Writing in a Woman’s Voice – March 11, 2023 “In a Room Up in the Sky”, another poem from Samsara is featured today in Writing in a Woman’s Voice.Writing In A Woman’s Voice Saturday, 11 March 202 Read more of this blog post »
Mar 11, 2023 04:27AM · 1 like · like
Shirani liked Neela's review of Samsara: "In Sanskrit the word ‘Samsara’ means ‘world’, it also represents the concept of the cycle of death and rebirth, a fundamental belief of Hinduism. In Buddhism, ‘Samsara’ means ‘suffering’. Like these meanings, Shirani Rajapakse’s poems also give us so" Read more of this review »
Feb 28, 2023 08:23PM · see review
Shirani liked Swapna Peri ( Books Review Cafe )'s review of Samsara: "A poem has few words, but it has a big heart. Poems are not only emotional in content but powerful in their tone. They speak those things that we humans tend not to even think about. In this book by Shirani Rajapakse, through the poems, readers will " Read more of this review »
Feb 19, 2023 06:56AM · see review
Shirani liked Annette Spratte's review of Samsara: "These poems are relatable, transforming everyday observances into philosophical depth, touching in a quiet way that is at once beautiful in its language and challenging in its meaning. Some poems made me laugh out loud, some brought me close to tears" Read more of this review »
Feb 19, 2023 06:56AM · see review
Shirani made a comment on Samsara – ebook cover " K.S. wrote: "Lovely!" Thank you. K.S. wrote: "Lovely!" Thank you. ...more "
Dec 30, 2022 06:20PM · see blog post
Shirani made a comment in the group Goodreads Librarians Group — DONE. Please add book covers - Samsara topic " Miss Pageturner wrote: "done but next time please push your request after a week of no answers and don't keep creating new requests, it only makes it ...more "
Dec 22, 2022 01:44PM
Shirani made a comment in the group Goodreads Librarians Group — Please add book covers topic " Here's a link to the Amazon page. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B... ...more "
Dec 08, 2022 07:05PM
Shirani made a comment on Poems for the Festival – Hope " K.S. wrote: "Beautiful." Thank you. K.S. wrote: "Beautiful." Thank you. ...more "
Jul 07, 2022 11:49AM · see blog post
Shirani made a comment on Silver Birch Press, March 13, 2022 " K.S. wrote: "Beautiful..." Thanks. K.S. wrote: "Beautiful..." Thanks. ...more "
Mar 17, 2022 11:39PM · see blog post
Shirani has read Gods, Nukes and a Whole Lot of Nonsense by Shirani Rajapakse (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 01, 2021 08:19AM · like

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¡ POETRY ! — 22320 members — last activity Mar 18, 2023 07:13AM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

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