A unique multilingual anthology of 948 poems — including translations — in 85 languages was recently launched at the International Kolkata Book Fair (IKBF) for the first time. Five hundred poets from 67 countries have contributed to the anthology titled Amaravati Poetic Prism , 2017 published by a Vijaywada-based organisation. It was first published in September 2015.
The nearly 1000-page anthology contains poetry in diverse Indian languages such as Awadhi, Mizo, Santhali, Koya, Gondi along with foreign languages like Keresan ( spoken in New Mexico), Zapotec ( spoken by an indigenous tribe in Mexico), Estonian, Latin, Croatian along with other major languages.
“The objective of launching the Amaravati Poetic Prism at the IKBF is to ensure that more people know about the anthology so that we have more poets contributing to it. Moreover, the IKBF is a wonderful platform to showcase this anthology to a wide variety of poets and book lovers,” said Padmaja Iyengar, an adviser to the Cultural Centre of Vijayavada and Amaravati (CCVA) which publishes the anthology.
The anthology not only comprises works by renowned Indian poets such as the Padma Vibhushan and Jnanpith awardee Sitakant Mahapatra who writes in Odia and English but also eminent poets from other countries. Renowned French poet Denis Emorine along with poets such as Hanan Mounib (from Egypt) and Androniki Dimitriadou(from Greece) have contributed to the latest edition of the anthology.
