The notion that nobody reads poetry should be put to rest if one were to go by the success of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival (BPF) during the last two years. Last year, according to Atta Galatta, over 5000 poetry lovers attended the festival.
In its third edition, BPF, curated by writers such as Shinie Antony, Prashant Sankaran, Shikha Saklani Malaviya, Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury, Amruta Dongray, and Sourav Roy, goes bigger with close to 60 poets, lyricists, musicians, performers and publishers from across the country and abroad coming together to celebrate poetry. “At the festival we are focusing on poetic talent,” says Lakshmi Sankar, co-founder of Atta Galatta. “Poetry is one of the finest writing crafts and it is something we must celebrate. In the previous two editions of the poetry festival we received a warm response from the audience, which was very encouraging for us. We wanted a festival dedicated entirely to poetry because there is so much of talent in the genre. A lot of young people are being drawn to poetry. We mainly stock books of poetry and two will be launched at the festival.”
From Shabana Azmi and Vishal Bhardwaj to Perumal Murugan and Mamang Dai, from Sridala Swami and Sohini Basak to publishers Anand Lal, the festival will bring together voices of every hue.
“There will be performances between sessions,” says Lakshmi. There will be performances by Neela Bhagwat, Usha Uthup, Manisha Agarwal, Kavish Seth and German Poet Singer Ulrike Almut Sandig in collaboration with Pune-based band, ALIF.
The workshops that will happen along side the festival are: Image, Sound, Surprise , a workshop by Michael Creighton on what makes a poem go “pop”. The Art Of Losing Is Not Hard To Master: Delicate Balances in a Short Poem, a workshop by Anamika, and Images and Cuts, a workshop on haiku by Sourav Roy.
There will also be workshops for children by Amar Chitra Katha for ages five and above, which include Rhyme and Reason Poetry Writing Workshop by Funky Rainbow for ages eight to 13 years.
Theatre group Jugaad.Co will also perform their popular children’s play- The Day the Crayons Quit .
The festival will be held on August 4 and August 5 at Leela Palace, Old Airport Road. For details visit www.bengalurupoetry festival.org.
