As part of the “Poetry with Prakriti”, a poetry slam competition was organised at Alliance Francaise. Open to both school and college students, the event saw a turnout of immense poetic talent in both English and Tamil categories.
Lyrical variety
A staggering range of themes were covered, especially in the school level. J. Shradha from Abacus school, who bagged the second prize, intrigued the judges by playing with interesting phrases like “history of occasions”. Her poem Small Things talked about how the smallest of actions go a long way in making a difference, and appealed to the audience to “remember your thoughts in your passion”.
Syed Fazlur from Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram, the second runner-up, won the judges over with his simple and rhythmic narrative style and good tonal variation in his poem, Every dog has its day .
The winner in the English category (school) was Rahul from Abacus school, whose poem was rife with dark humour and wove three storylines together. The English category participants experimented with topics such as women’s empowerment, musing over the lost privileges of childhood, the power of optimism, promoting the cause of mongrel adoption, an ode to a river and another to Marina Beach.
The participants for Tamil poetry pushed boundaries with their descriptive vocabulary and excellent enunciation. J. Harini bagged the first prize with her poem about natural elements.
Off beat
Many college students presented poems on love, but Anuja Sundar’s Fed to the dogs , stood out with its thought-provoking content. It related to a recent horrifying incident of female foeticide. Suvishesh Bhardwaj from MCC wove a charming description of a woman on a dusty road. He won laurels from the judges for showing restraint in his topic yet using impactful imagery. Smriti was praised for her metaphor of transferring pain onto paper, through the hard etching of graphite.
Satyamoorthi and Krishna from Loyola College presented social sarcasm in their poems, whike Ashwin was praised for intelligent use of a very wide vocabulary by judges Kavitha Jaubin from Sun TV network and Dr. Uma Devi from Thyagaraja College.
Rati Jafar, Director of INKO, and Anita Pottakulam were judges for the English category. Anita said that discovering poetry at a young age was a privilege and the youngsters should nurture their interest in poetry to grow further.
Rati Jafar said, “Poetry can be consumed in different forms; through reading, or by listening to narrated poetry. However, in both the mediums, how emotively one engages with the audience is important.”
Prakriti Foundation intends to promote youth’s interest in poetry through many poetry reading events held throughout December, along with theatre, music, dance and other cultural events.
For details email: prakritifoundation@gmail.com
