A poet’s meet in Kochi looks at the way ahead for modern Malayalam poetry

People said to the tanks, We are leaving westward

People said to the snowfall, We are going far away..

People said to the trees by the road side

We are going nowhere. Nobody asks them if you come back?

S. Joseph, on Russo- Ukraine War, 2022, translated from Malayalam

“Why does modern Malayalam poetry lack global outreach? Why is it confined to a niche local audience?” asks S. Joseph, who founded Emerging Poetry in June this year, with poets Kalathara Gopan and Babu Sacaria. The idea was to have a platform for modern Malayalam poetry. Dismayed by the futility of war in modern times, Joseph wrote the above anti-war poem in Malayalam and translated it into English.

Earlier this month, at the group’s second meeting in Kochi, Joseph, former HOD of Malayalam at Maharaja’s College, announced the establishment of a website (emergingpoetry.com). “Modern poetry in Kerala survives in splintered subsets like Women, Dalit, Eco poetry, gay writings and such. Emerging Poetry is an umbrella that seeks all poets in its shade.”

Joseph points out that post-modern Malayalam poetry came into being in the 1990s but faces challenges such as “micro-politics”, lack of good translation, promotion and a platform. “The group aims to introduce contemporary Malayalam poetry to Indian readers through English translation, as also Indian poetry to Malayalam readers through English/Malayalam translations. We wish to explore the potential for such an exchange at an international level.”

Poet and Yoga teacher Abe Abraham receives the first copy of Mele Kavulu, released by poet Dhanya Vengachery (Source: Special arrangement)

Support of poets

Renowned poets from Kerala such as K Satchidanandan, AJ Thomas, EV Ramakrishnan, MR Renu Kumar, Nisha Narayanan and NG Unnikrishnan, Jayant Parmar from Gujarat and Noarem Bidyasagar from Manipur have promised their support. Others who are part of the group include Dalit poet MB Manoj, tribal poets, Dhanya Vengachery and Sukumaran Chaligadha, women poets such as Vijayalakshmi, VM Girija, Ammu Deepa, Vidya Poovanchery and Chithira Kusuman. With the website being a work in progress, the poets are publishing their work on social media and are collecting poems from other States to share.

“The strength of emerging poetry is in its experimentation. We experiment in form rather than content,” explains Joseph. The fathers of modern Malayalam poetry including Kadammanitta Ramachandran, Prof D Vinayachandran, Balachandran Chullikkad and K Sachitanandan broke away from the traditional style of using the regular metre, highly Sanskritised idiom and stock imagery. Joseph is keen to encourage more experimentation. “Linear storytelling is rejected. Form is the base of our concept and its themes are irrationally rational. We are not against metre, butmost of the metres in Malayalam cannot be applied in contemporary poems due to their old forms and rhythms. If the poets can create new rhythms and metres, we will appreciate them.”

Another area of interest is translation. The group has brought on board translators such as Ravi Sankar, Radha Gomathy, Binu Karunakaran and PJ Binoy. However, as Babu Sacaria said, “translators are not motivated because of a lack of inspiring poetry.” There is also the problem of conveying the right essence. “This is especially true of tribal poetry,” says Joseph.

“The oral tradition was more powerful because it had the component of gestures,” says poet TM Shihab, citing the example of A Ayappan, a modern poet whose powerful prose poems could be sung.

Poetry and painting

The group is also toying with the idea of visualising poetry on canvas. Joseph had earlier shared this concept with various universities on lecture tours. “I know poetry is important to artists, we relate with each other.” There was also a discussion on starting a poetry festival on the lines of the Kochi Muziris Biennale.

The book, Mele Kavulu, a collection of modern Malayalam poetry , edited by S Joseph and Anwar Ali, (dedicated to Madhu, a tribal man who lost his life in Attappady) was released at the meet.

Micro-politics

There is the Dalit poet, the feminist, the LGBT voice, the elite male poet, the elite women poet, the gay political writer and so on. These subsets give importance to a group, not the individual. The Dalit poet is always a Dalit, the woman poet is always a woman. The identity of a poet becomes secondary,” says Joseph, adding that “Human beings can stay in their genres but must go beyond them. Because poetry is written for the unknown reader too. So, I say Dalit, tribal or woman, we are poets.