Interns in the House

The (Great) Indian Poetry Project is abuzz with the energy and enthusiasm of young blood. Our interns, Rhea, Shreya and Radhika, have been exploring Modern Indian Poetry with a fine eye and writing beautiful poems inspired by poets all over the world. Indian poets whose work they have resonated with are Tishani Doshi, Anjum Hasan, Nissim Ezekiel, Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Arundhathi Subramaniam, among others. Our interns are also helping build our poetry archive by writing profiles of Modern Indian poets and reviewing books that have touched them.  Check out what they have been reading:

The (Great) Indian Poetry Project-An Update

All good things take time. As many of you know, the (Great) Indian poetry project is very ambitious in scope, with a big online component. With hundreds of modern Indian poets come thousands of poems, and through those poems,  a powerful, multi-hued history of Modern India and its people. We are painstakingly collecting all the information of these wonderful poets and promise you an online archive like no other. We thank all of you for your support and patience so far. From June onwards, we will be introducing profiles, reviews, and interviews.

Another component of The (Great) Indian Poetry Project is a specialized press that will introduce new poetic voices through the publication of their first books. With two other talented poets, Minal Hajratwala and Ellen Kombiyil, we have formed The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective and our first offering will be out later this summer.

We are also collaborating with another poet,  on a project that would display poetry in public places, aptly called Poetry in Public India.

Stay tuned for all things poetry.

Poet Shailja Patel perfoms at TED, Vancouver

Poet, playright and perfomance artist Shailja Patel recites and acts out her poem, which pays homage to Zanzibari Taarab singer Bi Kidude. Patel has created waves in the poetry world with her cross-genre book Migritude, which is a heady mix of memoir, poetry and history. Enjoy!

Twittertry, Anyone? Twitter Inspired Poetry Book by Pritish Nandy

‘Provoked’ by the power packed in little tweets, 71 year old filmmaker-poet-painter-journalist Pritish Nandy is coming out with a book of 100 poems tomorrow, titled, ‘Stuck on 1/forty.’ Like a tweet, each poem of Nandy’s is defined by 140 characters. Enhanced by bright colors and bold fonts, each poem aspires to grab your attention and make you think.

Nandy’s thoughts on the book and poetry in general, as shared on IANS:

I don’t think poetry mutates over the years. It only keeps opening up to more new ideas, new vistas and new experiments, particularly in recent times…Stuck on 1/40 is one such experiment. If people read it, like it, share it, if it grows the conversation on the social network, it would have achieved its objective…Twitter is just a means of communication. Means do not inspire people. Content does. But the poems will work only when people read them and like them as poems. That is the most important thing. Poetry is format agnostic. It is even idiom agnostic. Language is changing today.

To get a taste of Nandy’s work, check out the slick youtube promo:

The Legacy of Dom Moraes

Kudos to Lounge, the weekly supplement of the Indian business newspaper Mint, for featuring a fortnightly column titled Poetry Pradesh. This fortnight’s column is a discussion between two poets, Sridala Swami and Ranjit Hoskote, on the poetic legacy left by Dom Moraes. Hoskote recently edited Dom Moraes: Selected Poems, published by Penguin India and shares his experiences on exploring and editing one of modern Indian poetry’s finest.