The second edition of the two-day Bengaluru Poetry Festival (BPF) is slated to begin at the Leela Palace on August 5. The festival, which aims to provide a space for poetry across forms and languages, will include performances, talks on poetry, workshops, and interactive sessions.
“Though poetry as a form of self-expression is gaining popularity, there are limited opportunities for poets within the existing literary festival platforms. Thus came the idea of creating a festival exclusively to promote poetry,” said Subodh Sankar, co-founder of Atta Galatta, which is curating the event.
He said the first edition of the festival last year had received surprising fanfare, with 4,000 poetry lovers attending over two days and 60 poets, from India and across the world, participating.
The second edition promises to be bigger. Apart from poets, the audience will get a chance to interact with poetry publishers and editors such as Ananda Lal, R. Padmanabhan Nair and Sandeep Bhutoria.
Among the sessions to look out for are a poetry appreciation workshop by Mani Rao, a session on Poem vs. Song by renowned songwriter Niranjan Iyengar, and a ‘Spoken Work’ workshop by Rochelle D’Silva.
There will also be a separate segment children, which will include sessions such as ‘Riddle on Verses’ by Ankit Chadda, a writing workshop by Ameen Haque, a poetry treasure hunt, and a talk on poets of Karnataka and their lives by Lavanya Prasad.
Poet, lyricist and film director Gulzar will open the programme on both days. Hindustani classical vocalist and Sufi singer Smita Bellur will bring the day’s programmes to a close on one day, while folk artist Mame Khan will do the honours on the other. Entry is free on both days.
