As a writer, Meena's focus was mainly on
caste annihilation,
feminism and linguistic identity. She says, "Poetry is not caught up within larger structures that pressure you to adopt a certain set of practices while you present your ideas in the way that academic language is," and thus, prefers to use it for her activism. One of her first collections,
Touch, was published in August 2006, with a foreword by
Kamala Das.
Touch was criticised for its English language errors, though its challenging themes were described as "interesting".
Ms. Militancy was described as an improvement in her use of the English language but "disastrous, if not worse" in terms of themes and content. In an interview with
Sampsonia Way Magazine, Meena said: "My poetry is naked, my poetry is in tears, my poetry screams in anger, my poetry writhes in pain. My poetry smells of blood, my poetry salutes sacrifice. My poetry speaks like my people, my poetry speaks for my people."
The Little Magazine,
Kavya Bharati,
Indian Literature,
Poetry International Web,
Muse India,
Quarterly Literary Review,
Outlook,
Tehelka and
The New Indian Express. She was also invited to participate in the
International Writing Program at the
University of Iowa in 2009 She co-authored
AYYANKALI: A Dalit leader of Organic Protest, a biography of
Ayyankali, a
dalit leader in
Kerala. The foreword was written by
Kancha Ilaiah). Meena was shortlisted among 21
short fiction women writers aged less than 40 from South Asia for an anthology published by
Zubaan Books, New Delhi. In 2014, she published a novel about the
Kilvenmani massacre titled
The Gypsy Goddess, influenced by the figure of Kurathi Amman, her "ancestral goddess". From January 2013, she began working on a book titled
Caste and the City of Nine Gates, her first non-fiction work. She was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.
As activist Meena works closely with issues of caste and gender and how society puts people into stereotypical roles on the basis of these categories. She has faced threats for her fearless criticism of the Hindu society, to which she says: "This threat of violence shouldn't dictate what you are going to write or hinder you in any manner." Meena attended the festival and spoke in support of it. She faced incessant abuse online as a result. The Network of Women in Media India (NWMI) released a press statement condemning the attack on her.
As translator Meena has translated prose and poetry from Tamil. She has translated the work of
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy,
Thol. Thirumavalavan and
Tamil Eelam writers such as Kasi Anandan, Cheran and VIS Jayapalan into English.
As actor Meena made her acting debut in the 2014 Malayalam film
Oraalppokkam. It was the first
online crowdfunded independent Malayalam feature film. ==Awards==