Hay Festival Kerala 2011 No.9 - Poetry Gala

Spanish poets Carlos Aganzo, Clara Janés, and José María Muñoz Quirós

Anitha Thampi, a Malayalam poet recited her poem called Ezhuthu, or Writing. These lines stand out: The strands of hair/ drip like a tree/ in the rain

Anupama Raju, a young poet and corporate educator from Thiruvananthapuram recited her poem, No Borders, which begins:

Poems sit on walls.

Moss-covered words fall gently

on my neighbour's page.

Carlos Aganzo. Carlos is a Spanish poet. He recited in Spanish a poem whose title (Oda al color amarillo) translated to English is Ode to Yellow Colour. It is a poem which brings beauty, joy and hope on rainy days.

Clara Janés was born in 1940 in Barcelona, and is a well-known poet and translator. She recited, or rather sang a poem which has only a few prominent syllables: amor, ver, vivir, morir, which are the words for love, to see, to live, and to die. She sang

Amor, mor, mori
Amor, morati, morate

Amor, amore
Eviva
Amor, ver

For more click below ...

Anitha Thampi (born 1968) is a Malayalam poet with two collections of poetry to her credit. Her first book, Muttamatikkumbol (Sweeping the Courtyard), published in 2004, was chosen as “the best poetry book of the year” by the influential Malayalam newspaper, Mathrubhumi. Her second collection, Azhakillathavayellam (All that are bereft of beauty) was published in 2010 after a span of seven years. In 2007, her Malayalam translations of Australian poet Les Murray were published in a bilingual edition. You can read more about her at
http://www.poetryinternational.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=19137

She recited her poem called Ezhuthu, or Writing. These lines stand out: The strands of hair/ drip like a tree/ in the rain

Here is the English translation:

Writing

Bathing,

the water stopped

all of a sudden

Whistling,

the water in the rusted pipe

came to a stop

Dripping,

the body shivered,

naked

Stretching

through the window

its fingers,

a shivering wind

For a moment

I felt like

being cold.

And off flew

the garment

of wetness.

Draped

in a wild summer,

I forgot

modesty.

The strands of hair

drip like a tree

in the rain.

From memory

they write

on the body

just a line

or

two

with water.

Anupama Raju

Here's a poem she recited, this young poet and corporate educator from Thiruvananthapuram.
No Borders

1.  Poems sit on walls.

Moss-covered words fall gently

on my neighbour's page.

2.  That yellow page has wings.

Van Gogh blue plumes fly across

seas named in old books.

3.  I travel with those

books inside metal boxes

dancing on shy waves.

4.  Waves lick distant shores,

land of a virgin language

looking for my tongue.

5.  My tongue speaks mango

words, yellow with ripe meanings.

Drip into islands.

6.  Islands float, brushing

against each other without

passports. No limits.

7.  No limits here. Where

suns dip into syllables,

orange clouds hitch-hike.

8.  Clouds, budget travellers

seeking summer tan under

sun-dried similes.

9.  Similes wave from

a passing ship that sails to

those empty countries.

10. Empty countries wait.

Bowls that long for fish swimming

across language lakes.

11. I become a lake

but no lotus blooms in here

only poems of yore.

12. My poems sit on walls

watch over neighbours, countries.

Poems have no borders.

Carlos Aganzo

Carlos is a Spanish poet. He recited in Spanish a poem whose title (Oda al color amarillo) translated to English is Ode to Yellow Colour. It is a poem which brings beauty, joy and hope on rainy days.

Clara Janés

She was born in 1940 in Barcelona, and is a well-known poet and translator. She recited, or rather sang a poem which has only a few prominent syllables amor, ver, vivir, morir, which are the words for love, to see, to live, and to die. She sang

Amor, mor, mori
Amor, morati, morate

Amor, amore
Eviva
Amor, ver

etc.