A fiery start to global poetry fete in Thiruvananthapuram

A specialty is that every poem will be translated into the language spoken in the city which hosts the festival.

It was rare inaugural ceremony that took place on time for once. The function began with a Theyyam performance by a group affiliated to the Kerala Folklore Akademi. It was bound to be awe-inspiring, but the artistes took it one step further and engaged with the audience, even managing to persuade poet K. Satchidanandan to take the stage and dance in tandem with the troupe.

This memorable start to Kritya 2014 - The International Festival of Poetry, will be followed by three days of in-depth discussions by writers representing 17 countries. What sets this annual event apart is its potential to engage with the local audience by translating every poem — whatever language it may be originally written in — into the language spoken in the city where the festival is being held.

The first programme was a poetry-reading session that saw writers from four different countries reading out some of their seminal works. Even during this brief hour-long session, the range of languages and ideas articulated were striking. Richard Jackson from the United States began the programme by reading out his poem, ‘Bosnian Elegy’. The author of 13 anthologies, this poet has received several honours, including the Order of Freedom Medal for his literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans.

His long, descriptive pieces were read out in Malayalam as well, translated by Indira Sadanandan. He also read out a poem called ‘Antigone Today.’ Swiss poet Ingrid Fichtner, by contrast, read out poems that were more of the staccato style — short, faltering sentences, but powerful all the same. Pornpen Hantrakool, from Thailand, was next.

The poem ‘Lie and Truth’ was a particularly poignant piece. Her poems were translated into Malayalam by Savithri Rajeevan.

Liana Langa from Latvia also participated in this session and she spoke about how the Baltic languages had a common root with Sanskrit. She read out pieces, including ‘Those Who don’t Belong’.

The day’s events also saw discussions on poetry and poets by a panel. The day’s events concluded with a poetry performance — a more theatrical rendition of poems that had a musical score accompanying the recitation. Monday’s events will see V. Madhusoodanan Nair, Vishnu Narayanan Namboothiri, and K. Satchidanandan participating.

Also expected are poets Sudeep Sen, Rita Ann Higgins from Ireland, Marc Delouze from France, Zulema Moret from Spain, Erik Lindner from the Netherlands, and Nese Yasin from Cyprus.