“The problem faced by poetry is that only poets are reading poetry, not the general public,” says Junaith Rahman. Sitting next to him, Santosh Alex adds, “People are not aware of poetry outside their own region. The regional languages are strong in literature, but they do not get much exposure, and we have few good translators in the country.” These two of the factors that led to Santosh and Junaith setting up rithupoetry.com, an e-journal dedicated exclusively to English and Hindi poetry, which the duo call the first of its kind in the country.
Santosh, who works as a senior technical officer at the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), has been translating for 21 years and writing for a little over a decade. He met Junaith, who is deputy general manager at Abad Fisheries, through Facebook, and the two later met up in Vishakapatnam to discuss the idea of starting a poetry journal.
“The idea was to start a portal that was academically relevant and give contemporary English and Hindi poetry a platform. There are many good poets out there, but finding and following their work is not an easy task,” says Santosh.
Junaith, who previously worked with a publishing imprint that focused on poetry, says that the online space is a more effective delivery medium for the craft.
“We did publish some good poetry collections but in the end we had to shut shop, losing all the money we invested in it. Even this year, umpteen poetry festivals have happened in the country but it is still very difficult to get published. Platforms like Facebook contain many good works, but those have varying quality standards, Rithu is our effort to publish the works of deserving writers and maintain high quality standards,” he says.
The journal, which is run by a six member team including Junaith and Santosh, has sections featuring contemporary English and Hindi poetry, translations from regional languages to English and Hindi, book reviews of poetry collections and interviews with English poets. “The thing about Rithu is that it is dynamic, each submission, once screened by us, is present for about a fortnight, and then each section gets updated independently as the next submission is readied, while the previous one is archived. This is important when you publish online, as people do not like waiting,” says Santosh.
Both Santosh and Junaith concur that poetry does not get the recognition it deserves. “People would happily buy an expensive collection autographed by its writer even if they never read it, just to show they possess it, while completely ignoring much more affordable and well received collections by lesser known poets. That is what we aim to change. Using our network of contributors and independent submissions, we want to give poetry the exposure it needs,” Santosh says, adding that good works by poets in vernacular languages will also be translated into English and Hindi, which are more accessible to readers.
Junaith says the team also wants to educate the younger generation on poetry. “Many people think poetry is something different, but poetry also talks about the world around us, just in a different way. Once youngsters understand that, they may be interested in learning more about it and maybe even writing themselves.”
The e-journal can be accessed online at http://www.rithupoetry.com .
