The book presents poets from bhakti as well as other streams. Verses by the famous ones such as Lal Ded, Akka Mahadevi, and Janabai are paralleled by the less-known works of Rami from Bengal and Toral from Gujarat. Equally arresting are references to “courtesan poets” such as Amrapali of Buddha’s times—cited usually for her seductive beauty but here, an old woman reviewing her shrivelled body. Another “courtesan” Peero, who escaped the red-light district of Lahore in the nineteenth century and found sanctuary in a religious space, speaks touchingly of her compulsions and vulnerabilities summarised in a dictum, “Wherever the lost ones meet,/a carnival begins.” Less-known stories surface in the words of Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a ghostly upside-down form who worshipped Shiva by walking on her hands and composing poetry all along. Subramaniam’s research is vast, impressive, and clear-sighted for her aim is to show the “paradoxes and inversions of the spiritual journey” that wild women undertake.