She teaches at Naropa University and as part of Goddard College"s low-residency Master of Fine Arts program, She is the author of a number of books, including The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (2001), Incubation: A Space for Monsters (2006), and Ban en Banlieue (2015).
Kapil"s first book, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, was written in the late 1990s and was submitted to Kelsey Street Press by a friend of hers. Khapil has noted that "Left to my own devices, the whole manuscript would be.. trash. Could look like me and write.".
In early 2015, The Believer held a round-table discussion of Bhanu Kapil"s work over the course of three days, featuring writers like Kate Zambreno and Sofia Samatar.
Kapil"s work can be difficult to classify, occupying a space between poetry and fiction. 2009"s Humanimal: A Project for Future Children took its inspiration from the nonfiction account of Amala and Kamala, two girls found "living with wolves in colonial Bengal." Douglas A. Martin has described Incubation: A Space Foreign Monsters as "a feminist, post-colonial On the Road." Kapil also contributed the introduction to Amina Cain"s short story collection I Go To Some Hollow.
Kapil"s creative work also encompasses performance art and her public readings sometimes blur the line between the traditional poetry reading and performance. Her poetry appeared in a collection edited by Brian Droitcour that was produced as part of part of the New Museum"s 2015 Triennial.
Incubation: A Space for Monsters was a Small Press Distribution best-seller.
Ban en Banlieue was named as one of Time Out New York"s most anticipated books of early 2015.
