Poetry is a realm that captures the nuances of life in words artistically stitched together. It is a pilgrimage, not just for the reader, but also for the poet. Just as an artist feels liberation through a masterpiece, a poet finds liberation through words that bridge the chasm between thoughts and expression.
“The word has played an important role in my life from as far back as I can remember. Rhyming and meter were all around in nursery rhymes, popular songs, ghazals, and devotional songs, and they captivated me,” says Salil Chaturvedi, who writes in both, English and Hindi.
Poetry is a means for writers to express themselves, preserve their thoughts, and immortalise what will soon be history through the medium of the written word. “Many thoughts and stories and poems come to my mind. If I don’t write them they are lost forever. The only way to preserve them and to share them among lovers of literature is by writing them,” says Willy Goes, a Konkani poet, artist, writer, musician, and teacher.
“Poetry gives me a great sense of freedom. When I write poetry, I don’t worry about having an active listener — I am mainly writing for myself,” says Gauri Gharpure, a poet based in Porvorim. For her, poetry is a means to communicate words she would otherwise not be comfortable sharing. When writing poetry, words flow out of her unlike at other times. “Someone may or may not resonate with it but I don’t have the compulsion to make a point,” she adds.
Radha Bhave, Konkani and Marathi poet, and writer, says, “Writing poems is the happiest experience for me. Through my poems, I experience the world that I don’t find in actuality.” She adds, “It gives me hope that if I can live my ideal world through my words then maybe one day I’ll be able to transform those hopes into reality. It makes me feel different and special from the people around me.”
For Dr Nutan Dev, a paediatrician by profession, and a poet with one Konkani and two Marathi books to her name, poetry is a stress reliever, a hobby. “Anything that l see in my day-to-day life, may it be the sky, sun, rain, the joy of a child, the pain of people, or even for that matter politics – give me one line, a trigger, and then l write on it,” she says.
Salil’s inspiration to write doesn’t come from anything specific either, “That’s hard to pinpoint. It’s some intensity that builds up and seeks a release through words. Usually, an emotionally charged moment seeks an expression. For example, I couldn’t really come to terms with my grandmother’s passing and could only understand it in soul terms only when I wrote a poem about it,” he says. “At other times, a poem teases out something from the depths as a gift of understanding, such as when I sat beside a tree and found it taller than any person I had met. That resulted in the poem, ‘I Look at a Tree and I Find It.’ sometimes a poem will emerge spontaneously when I am feeling particularly empty, and these ones are always a surprise.”
“The natural beauty of my small village in Goa where I am born and brought up, and the positive energy which I received from nature and my inner dialogues with the trees, vines, sky, stars, moonlight, rain, all these aspects of nature nudged me towards expressing myself through words which turned out to be poetry,” says Radha.
“My day-to-day experiences, my childhood memories and the happenings around me are my inspirations to write,” Willy says, as he speaks of what prompts him to write. “And of course that a writer lives through their published writings long after their death.”
Gauri’s inner poet had always existed, she realised it once she got into journalism and long for narrative writing, “At a certain stage, I began feeling that poetry is the medium that suits me the most. My father introduced me to the likes of Ghalib, Zauq, Meer-taqi-Meer, and Parveen Shakir when I was coming of age and the humble interplay of love and separation was simply fascinating.” Speaking of language in poetry, she says, “Even though I write in English, I don’t think anything can beat Urdu poetry.”
Salil elaborates on this, “The poems choose their own language. There is some sort of idiomatic shift. What I can say in one language, I don’t seem to be able in the other. So, in that sense, I feel lucky that I have a wider register.” He adds, “I have tried translating my poems from one language to the other, but it rarely works. When I wrote a poem about Yamuna it came in Hindi, and when I wrote on Mhadei, it came in English.”
Expressing diverse emotions through poetry across languages involves a delicate interplay of culture, linguistic nuances, and emotional resonance. Each language has its unique cadence, idioms, and metaphors that lend themselves to distinct emotional shades. For instance, joy might be vividly captured in vibrant imagery in one language, while another might evoke it through rhythmic patterns.
Poetry styles, ranging from sonnets to haikus, offer varied avenues for emotional exploration. A sonnet’s structured verses can encapsulate complex emotions with elegance, while haikus distil moments into minimalistic beauty.
“My first poetry collection had a section of haiku. These are 3-line poems with 17 syllables which I love to write because of a sense of abstractness and mysticism associated with them,” says Gauri. “So, for my second collection, ‘Sound of Sugar’, I naturally gravitated to haibun - a Japanese form of prose poetry that also includes haiku. Here, I have shared concise poetic stories about relationships, sunsets, decisions, flowers, death, desires, and emotions such as anger, guilt, and shame.” Salil’s latest book, ‘a little knowing’ is a collection of haibun as well.
Goan poets, who write in different styles and languages come together to celebrate the art of poetry. Willy says, “Goa is rich in literature. In Goa we have countless poets and writers, and all can be placed in high esteem. It is a pleasure when we writers and poets meet and share our literary works. It is so enriching.”
“For me, poetry will be on the scene when we find it stencilled in public spaces: inside buses, on public walls, in public toilets, in parks, on hoardings. We need lots of poetry around us,” says Salil.