Poems need not be the same old broken lines with carefully placed punctuation marks and craftily woven words, which, rather than create an interest in readers, often leave them confused, Odveig Klyve, a poet from Norway, says.
For this poet and film maker, poetry could be anything, anywhere, she told The Hindu on the sidelines of Kritya 2012, a three-day international festival of poetry which began at the Vyloppilly Samskrithi Bhavan in the city on Monday. Literally so, her poems were displayed at places such as railway stations, and airports using display boards and backed by powerful photographs that rarely go unnoticed.
At Kritya, Ms. Klyve had created a photo-poetry exhibition through her project titled ‘Geopoeticon.' Selected poems of various poets from around the world found visual representation through the 15 sets of framed, colourful photographs. According to Ms. Klyve, these poems spoke through the images, thereby creating a lasting impression on the viewers.
“The idea is to create a room for conversation because poetry can take any form, be it through images or music. Moreover, poetry has many facets, most of which still remain unexplored,” she said.
She often got phone calls from people, who, seeing her poems at railway stations, wanted to share their interpretations of the picture and the poem. “No one has the time to read poems in detail to analyse it. This was a fast-moving world and often one needed to enter straight into the heart than knocking at its doors. There may be only two lines in a poem but when accompanied by a strong visual, the impact created on the viewer was tremendous,” she said.
Experimenting further, she also began making short films which made use of international contemporary poems as the main narrative element. As many as 12 such films which found their way into various international poetry festivals would be screened at this festival. The films opened up a world of visual poetry in reels. Photo-poetry and poetry films could revive in the younger generation an interest in this art form, she said.
