Sati Mookherjee
Sati Mookherjee is the author of Eye (Ravenna Press, 2022). Her work appears in literary journals and anthologies like Comstock Review, Cream City Review, and Sonora Review. Her collaborations with contemporary classical composers have been performed or recorded by ensemble (The Esoterics, Contemporary Chambers and Players) and solo musicians (Hope Wechkin: Leaning Toward the Fiddler). Recipient of an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship Award, Sati is a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest.
Sati's website: satimookherjee.com
Read an interview with Sati in Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR)
Book release reading for MoonPath Press Sally Albiso Award Winner Sati Mookherjee for Ways of Being & Concrete Wolf Louis Award Winner Emily Ransdell for One Finch Singing.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Poem from Ways of Being
Feather
for Oren Traub
Kelp binds the driftwood stub, like rusty wire.
The sea streams this way.
Smell of mildew. Drunken jigging in an alley.
A cedar box of keys.
Somewhere important things are still locked up,
or have been released?
Or are no longer important? You have so many keys.
The self swells like a wave, crests
like a wave, is diminished, backs down
to nothing. The sea streams that way.
You can’t help yourself, you ascribe tenderness
to the way the seaweed holds the driftwood twist.
A schoolgirl pauses in an alley
to pose flamboyantly,
miniskirt, thigh, stocking, his sheepish smile,
her monkey grin,
his arm around her waist. Shoebox
of photographs in a keyed fire safe,
boxes constructed in space, and holding space.
You can’t help yourself: wind animates
a molted feather and you read the waving feather
as another way of being.