When renowned poet-writer, Sujit Mukherjee learned about the idea of collaborating with children and bringing out their poetic side, he was immediately intrigued. Sujit collaborated with Sloka- The Hyderabad Waldorf School, to conduct a workshop with the students. The concept behind this exercise was to help students broaden their perspective. The result is an impressive collection of poems penned by children.
The school hosted a launch of the book Heart Strings last weekend in the presence of students and their parents at its premises.
Much acclaimed Sujit, whose Dewdrops - a collection of poems , have been translated by world-renowned poets into various languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek and Chinese, says he has always been interested in working with children.
“When I started this process, it reinforced my idea that poetry is innocence. It’s untainted versions of our thinking and only children have that quality in abundance. If I have to do this, I need to spend many hours with these children and creatively clear their minds first,” says Sujit.
As a member of the International Writers and Artists association (IWA), he carries forward the association’s intent to encourage schools and young children to take up creative writing.
He worked in the past with children from various backgrounds to think positively and write creatively. It gave him an edge to understand this project better. “Many children took part in this exercise. We finally shortlisted 87 poems. The main criteria for selecting these poems was the theme, grammatical accuracy, and lucidity of flow and language. Many children wrote about their mothers or picked other creative themes.”
Anecdotes from his personal experience as a poet encouraged the children to start thinking and writing. “For that matter, even the title of the book, ‘Heart-stings’ was chosen by them. It is very important for them to express. There is a poet in each one of us. We have to find our own unique creative expression,” he adds.
For Sujit, it took about eight weeks to put the book together, at the end of it, he says, he firmly believes that children have an abundance of creativity in them, which just need to be channelised properly.
He believes that apart from mainstream schooling, activities like this help children to have a broader perspective of the world from a very young age.
What impressed him the most about this experience is the spontaneity of expression, simplicity of language, error-free composition and the variety of themes chosen by the kids, he says.
Sujit says it helped that the children understood the concept of poetry well. “Some of them even knew how to write but just had to learn the nuances. When I told them that I will publish the best poems in a book they seemed enthusiastic,” he says.
