Women Poets Poetry Session - October 21, 2022

Sea Poppies - The title of the poem by Hilda Dolittle

The October session of the Kochi Reading group was dedicated to women poets. A wide range of women poets were featured – we had two Malayalam poets, Sugatha Kumari and Balamani Amma, in translation; the Kannada writer Vaidehi also in translation; Warda Yassin, a British born Somali poet; Forugh Farrokhzad from Iran, Hilda Dolittle and Mary Oliver from USA and Meg Cox from UK. All the poets, except Mary Oliver, were new to the KRG readers. This opens up new vistas for those of us who enjoy reading poetry.

The reading year has reached its last stretch with only the next session in November for the novel Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley and the December session on humorous poems to kick start the Christmas celebrations. This last is the most anticipated session for the merriment it affords, not only through the poems, but by the fancy costumes and makeup readers wear for the occasion. This time hopefully we can all meet physically, instead of on Zoom. The Zoom platform has been a boon which allowed KRG to meet regularly during the almost three years of the Covid-19 pandemic; but the physical sessions we used to have at Yacht club  provided an intimacy that enhanced the literary zest. All of us will be happy to get back to regular meetings there, hopefully in 2023.

It is that time of year when we select the six novels for the coming year, so everyone is invited to put on their thinking caps on and select a great list. 

The women poets session was the first since Kumkum and Joe moved into their  beautiful apartment at DLF Riverside. Fort Kochi is poorer without these two lovely people, but Kumkum says she will be visiting often as she misses her house and the sea. We too miss the pictures of the sunset that Kumkum used to sends us on WhatsApp.

We missed three members at this session – Thomo, Geetha and Pamela. Pamela is visiting her daughters to discharge grandmother duties to welcome two beautiful angels, one in the US, and the other in Norway. But we hope to have her back with us soon.

Thomo and Geetha have set out on a Bharat Darshan in their Tata Nexon EV and will be away for sometime. They send us regular updates of their travels and we keep in touch through the marvels of modern technology. You can follow Thomo and his adventures on his Facebook handle @Thomas Chacko. As I write this, they have reached Hisar in Haryana.

Thomo and Geetha setting out from Ernakulam on their trip

Thomo at Kanyakumari – starting point of his Bharat Darshan; 

the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue are in the background.

Our resident poet, Joe penned these few lines in honour of our intrepid travellers: 

Bon Voyage to Thomo and Geetha

Like Shankaracharya

From Kalady to Kashmir 

Venture Thomo and Geetha

From Kanyakumari to Umling La without fear,

Part pilgrimage, part tourism,

Part dare, part adventure,

Plotting their route by an algorithm,

Through EV charging points well-measured,

Impelled by an avid quest,

To establish new records

For distance, time, height and the rest,

Traversing modern highways forwards

Even to ancient roads,

Filling their eager hearts

With the Discovery of India !