Poetry of the people

ldquoYou must have noticedrdquo the male voice on the other end of the telephone tells me ldquothat I have a rather effeminate voice for a 23yearoldrdquo Deepak Ramola isnrsquot looking for me to agree disagree or reassure mdash he already ldquoowned his storyrdquo at a recent poetry slam when he recited lsquoI Have Been An Adult All My Lifersquo which also won the slam competition that eveningCofounder of the Airplane Poetry Movement Nandini VarmaRamolarsquos poem was about how he was mercilessly bullied at school because of his voice and how he dealt with the trauma Get the Beat rightThe slam was organised by Airplane Poetry Movement APM a compelling initiative which introduces participants tospoken word poetry wherein one writes a poem and performs it on stage The concept is rather popular in the US for instance where Beat writers American postWW II writers prominent in the 1950s such as Allen Ginsberg famouslyrecorded spoken word Today Sarah Kay Kate Tempest and Saul Williams are some of the prominent international namesassociated with spoken wordNow APM aspires to add younger Indian voices to the list In December last year two 22yearolds Nandini Varma and Shantanu Anand both law students at the ILS Law College Pune founded APM with the desire to free poetry from its common and unfortunate association mdash that it is esoteric and not for the young The duo has been holding two tofive daylong workshops in schools colleges cafes and cultural hubs across Mumbai Delhi Bangalore and Pune wherein they first train participants in writing exercises following which the lsquopoetsrsquo write a poem meant to beperformed APM has conducted sessions in Mumbai at The Hive and the Birdsong Cafeacute Last month APM conducted workshops at Jai Hind and Xavierrsquos colleges and will conduct more sessions this monthDeepak Ramola an APM slam winner PICs COURTESYNandini VarmaPoetry is for everybodyldquoWhen I first watched a spoken word performance on YouTube I realised how different it is from the poetry we read in school It was forceful poignant and the speakers didnrsquot write in metre or rhyme It compelled me to begin an Indian youthcentric movementrdquo says VarmaIn addition to this ambition adds Anand APM seemed the best way to make poetry cool for youngsters ldquoWe want to defy the idea that poetry isnrsquot for everybody and give poetry back to the people For a youngster with a complex inner life spoken word is more representative than the dumbeddown mainstream mediardquo he explainsAPMrsquos youngest spoken word poet was 14 and people have performed on topics ranging from a letter to an Iranian rape survivor to the love story between a chai and a biscuit Tom and Jerryrsquos fictitious landlady personal demonsand introspective issues Ramola who now regularly performs at slams says a poem flourishes when it is performed ldquoWhen I perform my poetry my pauses my voice my hesitation it enhances my belief in my poetry APM is farsuperior a platform than other slams because their workshops really make you think and write on ideas yoursquod would have never thought of The peer feedback is very constructive toordquo he believesThe road aheadAPM has a busy year ahead Its recent tieup with Menstrupedia has translated into boys and girls posting their poems on menstruation on its website an initiative Anand says is heartening and unique because ldquohow often do boys talk forget think about issues around menstruationrdquo Many also posted videos of themselves performing poems on therecent shooting at Peshawar online Later this month APM and a Karachibased spoken word group Spoken Stage will kickstart their association by performing a long poem jointly written by five Indian and five Pakistani youngstersThe poem will stress on the need to accept and respect differences in culture and celebrate similarities between the countriesHowever their most ambitious project will take place in July mdash The National Slam Competition mdash for which APM will conduct eliminations involving spoken word poets from the four metros in February ldquoOnce we have sponsors and enough manpower we hope to go smaller towns too and help people discover how powerful and liberating spoken word canbe We may not know it but therersquos a poem inside each of usrdquo smiles Anand