Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist including through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her family, and is the daughter of immigrants to the U.S. from Kerala, India. Sunu’s award-winning collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was published by Regal House. Sunu’s work can be found in publications including Asian American Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Poets on Adoption, Split this Rock’s online social justice database, The Quarry, and in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood and This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Sunu is currently a Senior Advisor with Democracy Forward, supporting work across the teams including fighting the attacks on racial equity and inclusion, and working alongside partner organizations to help build a nation that does right by all of us. Sunu started out as a union-side labor and employment lawyer in NYC, and has worked for 25 years as a civil rights attorney, including as a litigator with EEOC for 15 years, as General Counsel of the DC Office of Human Rights (OHR), and as Deputy Director for Civil Rights at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Sunu was most recently the Legal Director of the National Women’s Law Center for six years until August 2023, where she oversaw litigation, led LGBTQ+ equality work, and provided guidance on policy matters relating to Workplace Justice. Sunu is a graduate of Northeastern Law School and Earlham College, where she majored in Women’s Studies and Peace and Global Studies. Sunu also completed her MFA in poetry at Queens College, City University of New York in 2013. Sunu has served on many boards of directors including with the South Asian Women's Creative Collective (SAWCC) in New York City, and she is currently on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu has been included as one of Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love and named one of the Queer Women of Washington.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
MER - Mom Egg Review, “Learning to Hold the Candle” (December 2023)
Hill Rag, “Ode to the Broken Printer, Three Printers Ago” (December 2023)
Pen America, “My Daughter Now Dreams of Guns” (Video link)
Pride Poems, 2023, (Scroll down for video of “Taxi Driver Brother Man”)
“Things I Didn’t Know I Loved,” published by Washington Writers Publishing House (January, 2023)
Celebrating Pride in Verse: Pride Poems Showcases D.C.’s Queer Poets (2022, Scroll down for video of “Too Pretty”)
Several poems in anthology, The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, edited by Jeet Thayil (2023)
Poem in anthology, The Long Devotion, available here, edited by Emily Perez and Nancy Reddy. Video of January 19, 2023 reading with five other authors from the collection)
Poem in Queer Cookies Cookbook
“First Quarantine Poem” (2020) - Published by Split This Rock’s The Quarry - and shared during A Space for Grief: An OutWrite Reading During Pandemic Times (at 18:30).
“Do the Math: Spring 2020, Quarantine Edition” (October 2020); Recorded on video at minutes 47 to 50 during the Fighting Hunger! A Poetry Service
Plume Poetry, Indian Poets: “Shelter-In-Place” (2017)
Mom Egg Review, Literature and Art: “To Satya from Satya” - March 15, 2017
Asian American Writers' Workshop- None of the Furniture Fits: Two Poems by Sunu Chandy August 9, 2016
Split this Rock Poetry Database: “Too Pretty” July 1, 2016
Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Volume 16:4, “Salvation Army,” “Divestment,” “Just Act Normal,” “Lodge,” and “Kasthaputta Vanhu” Fall 2015
Asian American Writers’ Workshop – “Hey, Thanks for Being Nice,” September 8, 2014
Poets On Adoption, Sunday, May 1, 2011
“The Fire In My Heart,” This Bridge We Call Home. Edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, Routledge, 2002
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Queens College (CUNY) Magazine - Alumna Pursues Justice as a Lawyer and a Poet (Fall 2023)
Poets House - Hard Hard Series
Poet and civil rights attorney Sunu P. Chandy reads “On Kindness” by Aracelis Girmay, plus her own poem “Teaching My Daughter How to Re-Cap the Toddler Toothpaste” from My Dear Comrades, as well as a new poem, “I Like Your Plant.” Click Here to check out Sunu’s Sept 23 workshop, Poetry that Keeps Us Going!
Recording of March 27, 2024 Event - Bozeman, Montana
Join Country Bookshelf in welcoming visiting poet Sunu P. Chandy alongside KD Chavez, Jasmine James, and Hazel Gonzalez McCord on March 27th at 6pm. Following a reading from Sunu’s book, My Dear Comrades, she will be in discussion with three of Bozeman’s own activists around poetry, activism, and the lovely space where the two meet. Recording of the event available here (Sunu’s poems at minutes 17-31)
Outspoken Voices - a Podcast for LGBTQ+ Families - Author, Poet, and Activist: Sunu Chandy - November 2, 2021
In this episode host Emily McGranachan and co-host Dakota Fine meet with Sunu Chandy and discuss her recently completed book of poetry My Dear Comrades. On the pod, Sunu reads three poems and gives careful thought to her work and life as a lawyer, mom, wife, daughter, and outspoken member of the LGBTQ+ community. We discuss: being the child of immigrants, fertility issues, adoption, misassumptions about identity, and being a parent and a caretaker.
Unity in Yoga - Poetry, Spoken Word, Hip Hop and Yoga with Neil Patel and Sunu Chandy