Starting today, the Mumbai Poetry Festival featuring 50 poets offers a platform for writers and readers to engage with the written word
(From left to right) Prabodh Parikh, Anju Makhija, Bina, Anjali Purohit, Kamal Vora, Salil Tripathi and Ashwani Kumar at a previous edition. Pics Courtesy/POETRYWALA FOUNDATION
Going 20 years back to the inception of Poetrywala Foundation, a poetry publishing movement, founders and poets Smruti Divate and Hemant Divate tell us that it was writer Dilip Chitre who suggested the platform, name and its logo after translating Hemant’s book of poems titled Choutishiparyantchya Kavita in 2003 as Virus Alert. Today and tomorrow, the second major edition of the Mumbai Poetry Festival celebrates two decades of Poetrywala publishing over 150 collected works and more than 80 poets in India and across the world.
Smruti says, “In the early 2000s, there were few publishers for poetry and English translations. It was a niche market compared to [other genres].” Sharing her thoughts, she continued that unlike self-help books and similar genres that can be sold rather quickly, poetry moves at a slower pace but sustains you in the longer run.
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Smruti Divate; Hemant Divate; Arundhathi Subramaniam. Pic Courtesy/Instagram
Over the two-day festival, the team will release eight new books. Along with launches and discussions, the schedule includes readings by nearly 50 renowned poets and writers including Arundhathi Subramaniam, Jerry Pinto, Ranjit Hoskote, Mustansir Dalvi, Sachin Ketkar, and others. Look forward to readings from Marathi poetry and Latin American poetry. Speaking about the latter, Hemant reveals, “After the inaugural speech by Ashok Vajpeyi, the Latin American Poetry segment will feature Victor Rodriguez Núñez [Cuba], Katherine Hedeen [The USA], Dulce Chiang [Mexico], Rei Berroa [Dominican Republic], in conversation with Subhro Bandopadhyay.” The next day, there will be a dedicated discussion on Maltese poetry with Sampurna Chattarji and Adrian Grima.
Visitors can also attend the two-hour-long Mumbai Poetry Jam, including a coffee break in between, with 12 city-based poets reading their works. Another prominent highlight includes a new Diwali issue of the Divates’ AbhidhaNantar Marathi magazine that was founded in 1998, which will include prose, poetry and criticism.
Mustansir Dalvi
On celebrating two decades, the team hopes to open its doors to younger folks and students attending the festival and introduce to them the rich reading material available. “We are a small publishing house, so to complete 20 years is a big milestone. We have attempted to be consistent in our work highlighting unique voices and the different ways in which they write; the poets we published have written excellent poetry,” the founders sign off.
On: January 5 to January 6; 8.45 am to 6.10 pm
At: The Glamour Banquet Hall, Hotel Bawa International, Nehru Road Extension, Vile Parle East
Log on to: Poetrywala Foundation on Facebook
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