The national and international delegates to the Hyderabad Literary Festival sat up and took note of the glory of Telugu poetry when noted revolutionary poet K. Siva Reddy, through his forceful representation, offered a glimpse into the universality of the literary tradition in Telugu.
The legendary poet’s introduction to Telugu poetry at a panel discussion sounded thunderous
Seemingly offended at his introduction as a ‘local poet’, Mr. Reddy started off by asserting that poetry in Telugu was rich enough to rub shoulders with poetry in any other language across the world.
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No barriers
Mr. Reddy, an authority on almost all poetic traditions across the globe, sought to stress that all poets transcended the barriers of region, language and culture.
“Once a piece of poetry is written, it becomes universal,” he stated.
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“Be it revolutionary poetry, Dalit poetry, minority poetry or feminist poetry, each trend in Telugu poetry has a philosophical background and makes the reader forget his personal climate and become one with the poet,” Mr. Reddy added.
Writer C. Mrunalini spoke about the decline of the Telugu novel and attributed it to the emergence of strong identity movements at various levels.
With the arrival of Dalit, minority, feminist and regional identities, the subject of the erstwhile fiction in Telugu has itself become the writer and begun to have its own narrative. However, writers from all these identities have chosen poetry and short story writing to give vent to their emotional urgency, not paying enough attention to novels which demand a great deal of contemplation and introspection. Another panellist J.Bhagyalakshmi spoke about the short story tradition and said writers in Telugu were known to have experimented all genres.
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