Last weekend, around 50 people gathered at Geothe Zentrum to read poetry. Not all of them were professionals. But they shared a love for words. Some read out poems of others, while others presented the ones written by them. A few lugged guitars in to the room and hummed their favourite songs.
The poetry recitation programme, organised by Coimbatore Art and Theatrical Society (CATS) celebrated World Poetry Day by giving a platform for budding and established poets. Srividya Sivakumar, a city-based poet, moderated the session.
“It is always heartening to see people talk about and read poetry. Poetry has no one form. There is no right or wrong in it,” she said.
Revathy, an English teacher read out the first poem. Called Miracles of Nature , it was filled with images drawn from Nature.
Kanika Khanna’s Pic In My Mind’s Eye, drawn from her experience, was about a lady who sees herself as a dead person staring out of a garlanded photo frame. The poem spoke about how each of us dies a little when we fail to live our dreams.
Jayashree V Murthy, a city based theatre trainer, expressed the angst of gender discrimination in her poem.
She followed it up with a reading of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman. Tanvi Palaniappan, an English literature student of PSG CAS, recited English translations of Gulzar’s poems
The sessions were punctuated by music performances. The audience hummed along with Kirthana and Archana Devdas as they belted out Trini Lopez’s version of If I Had a Hammer and an Elvis Presley melody.
Madhumitha Varadarajan, a 25-year-old creative consultant from the city was the poet of the evening. She blogs as “The Volatile Woman’ on Facebook and Tumblr. Her favourite poets include Kamala Das, Kuzhali Manickavel, Sylvia Plath and Jim Morrison.
“Poets have a tendency of making you feel like you are not all alone in this world, she said. Her poems are dark and intense musings on love, impermanence and self-reflection.
Two of them are written in Stream of Consciousness style.
The young poet said that her love for poetry began when she came across her father’s old college journal filled with his poems. “And I wanted to fill the rest of the pages so badly and so desperately.”
Later, she enrolled for creative writing workshop, conducted by University of East Anglia (UEA) where she was mentored by writers such as Amit Chaudhary and Kirsty Gunn. “The rest of the participants were highly qualified writers from all over the country and the world, and they accepted me as a writer.”
The final poem for the evening was Walking Down MG Road . It was presented by Thiru Ilango, an IT professional. The poem offered snapshots of Bangalore city life. “My English professor encouraged me to write poetry, by asking me to pen down every day scenes and stop worrying about rules or rhymes,” he said.
The event was held as a part of the week long celebration called Fiesta March. On Friday CATS had conducted Story Telling Contest to celebrate World Story Telling Day. It is their first initiative and they plan to make this an annual event, says K.V. Siddhartha of CATS. “It would be better if we could give these participants a platform outside the city. We are open to working with sponsors,” he said.
Siddhartha feels organising it in this small scale is the best. “This way we can keep it interactive and cosy. And we would like to limit it to two hours so that the audience can get back to their homes early and get on with their daily activities.”
The best part of the event was that people lingered even after the event was over to talk to the poets, interact with each other and build new friendships.
“And these are the little pleasures that keep this city alive and dear to those living here,” Siddhartha added.
