Wings of Poetry

Poets in the city are trying to popularise the verse by infusing it with new twists

Apoet is a visionary who sees in his environment what others dont. Possessed with a fierce imagination,he turns the ordinary into extraordinary. Lately,as getting published has got tougher and the stock of poetry anthologies has dwindled,poetry is becoming niche. This is also pushing poets in the city to set up their sanctuaries.

City-based Dipalle Parmar knows the challenges well. It took her nine years to get published. Nobody wants to publish poetry because poetry books dont sell, says Parmar,whose first book,Not a Word Heard,was published by Poetrywala in 2010. She adds that her poems were first published in Pune by the NGO Open Space,in their booklet of poems based on social issues.

Parmar soon branched out to holding workshops on creative writing and poetics,including master classes at the Foundation for Liberal and Management Education (FLAME). I took a different approach to teaching poetics. I would give my students challenges that required them to bend perceptions. An example would be clubbing a flower and their first heart-break,expecting them to go about a life event allegorically, says Parmar.

As veteran poet Randhir Khare says,Those who have gone past it cannot be converted. It is the young who are poetrys hope. Khare has been writing poems since the age of 11 and has been published vastly. Settling in Pune 13 years ago,he believed the city would provide him with a spatial,psychological,physical and cultural balance, which would be conducive to his writing. Teaching at the Pune University,Khare has crafted a paper on creative writing,laying an emphasis on poetry. I had once started a writers forum where people would come and read their work. It soon turned into a one-man show, says Khare,who then abandoned the project.

Resonating Parmars discontent over the lack of avenues for poets,Khare says,Nobody is willing to stick out his neck for poetry. He does not believe that the audience is non-chalant. There are great lovers of art but few buyers, he says,adding that while a poetry initiative is met with good response,there arent too many initiators.

On his website,Khare manages a blog which exhibits literary works by young writers and poets. I have great hope in the age-groups 17-25 years, says Khare,who also plans on publishing young authors soon in his own humble way.

On the other hand,Kala Ramesh has set out to propagate a niche form of poetry haiku a 400-year-old three-line poetry form with roots in Japan. I started learning haiku in 2005,and soon started writing in the style. My training is in Hindustani classical music,which I fuse in my poems thematically, says Ramesh. Optimistic that a different form of writing will draw out true lovers,she and her associates started a club called In Haiku,as an avenue for discussing and propagating the art form in Pune and even in India. She has held four haiku festivals in the city since 2006 under the guidance of the World Haiku Club.

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Khare says that despite the apathy that their art encounters,the role of the poet is to open the doors of perception for readers.

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