Spotlight series #112 : Mandy Sandhu

Curated by Canadian writer, editor and publisher rob mclennan, the “spotlight” series appears the first Monday of every month.

STATEMENT

Recently, I have found myself immersed in the study of sonnets and the New York School poet, Ted Berrigan. Berrigan was highly skilled at arranging and building around the repetition of key lines and figures. He broke down sentences and rearranged phrases at random, resulting in sonnets that deviated from the strict rules of meter, rhyme and structure of Shakespeare. In my debut chapbook, The Temporary Place of a Placenta, I try to imitate Berrigan’s sonnet format by restricting each line to ten syllables and each poem to 10 or 14 lines. Writing sonnets has taught me how to choose words that are precise and meaningful.

In “Bathinda, Punjab,” I reflect on the surreal intersections of sacred imagery, familial ritual, and literary suppression. “Buffalo Milk” contrasts Western wellness ideologies with ancestral practices, challenging reductive narratives around health and modernity. Through fragmented structure and sensory detail, I explore how identity is negotiated.

TWO POEMS

BATHINDA, PUNJAB

Grandparents live near Pakistan border
man wrapped in white loincloth long brown hair
kneels chews sugarcane it’s sacrificial
resembles brown Jesus atypical features
pierce mine but his wan expression fools me
feed him daal roti, Naniji (grandma)
meanwhile I barter fatwa copy
but bookstore ban on Salman Rushdie
Satanic verses

BUFFALO MILK

We are told milk causes inflammation
lactose intolerance anybody?
dairy abstinence the new protocol
migration patterns gora fallacy?
Yet father drank majh udder 1kg per day
sweeter than cow’s milk more fat lucrative
panch kalyani white markings on female
raw unprocessed preserved in steel buckets
hang from ceiling a western suicide
milk does body good beneath Punjabi sun

Mandy Sandhu is a poet based in Oakville, Ontario. Her debut chapbook, The Temporary Space of a Placenta, was published by above/ground press in July 2025. Her work, often in sonnet form, blends vivid imagery with sharp observation, drawing inspiration from writers like Sylvia Plath, the Beats, Dale Smith and Ted Berrigan. Mandy works at Toronto Metropolitan University in the Disability Office.