Thursday 4 September 2014

Poetry Reading – Aug 22, 2014


Poetry sessions offer the widest variety of imaginative expression for our readers. They pose problems, as well, for the mind wants to get to the bottom of things, and often the poems are elusive as to their meaning. They suggest different things for different readers.

Elusive

Poems in translation are even more difficult to appreciate for they have been shorn of their original sounds, and perhaps had their language conventions turned upside down by the process of translation. Does Azmi's Urdu formalism make sense in English? Does Césaire's prose poem convey the nostalgia of the French when translated? Can Akhmatova be divorced from her soft Russian inflections and yet yield her treasures?


Nine readers try to show what can be achieved, mixing American and British writers with a variety of poets from all over the world.

Vijay, Thommo, Talitha, Priya, Gopa, Pamela, 
Divya Singh, Sujatha, Sreelatha, Ankush