‘Poetry like bread is for everyone’ — Roque Dalton
Poetry enthusiasts of Hyderabad are in for a treat. The 13th edition of the Hyderabad Literary Festival, after two online editions in 2021 and 2022, returns to the in-person format. As a prelude to the annual festival in January 2023, HLF is organizing two unique events in November and December 2022. KaavyaDhaara: The HLF Poetry Festival, scheduled for 12thNovember, 2022, is a day-long celebration of poetry in multiple languages. Poets from the UK and bhasha poets from India will read and discuss their work. On 10thDecember 2022, translators from the UK and India will reflect on the art and craft of translation in Anuvaad: The HLF Translation Festival.
The event is being organised at T-Hub, India’s pioneering innovation eco-system and the world’s largest innovation hub. This event marks the fine association of literature and technology. Poetry like tech-start-ups is inspired by the possibilities of innovation and ideation in language. Poems are a constant reinvention of forms, patterns and figurative use of language. Poetry is an intelligent application of sound to thoughts and feelings.
On 12th November, at T-Hub, KaavyaDhaara: The HLF Poetry Festival will be inaugurated by Gareth Wynn Owen, British Deputy High Commissioner to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and eminent Telugu Poet, Member of Legislative Council, Telangana State, Gorati Venkanna (Sahitya Akademi Award 2021). The Inauguration will be followed by eight sessions on poets based in India and the United Kingdom. Eminent critics, writers and literary thinkers from the city will be in conversation (online) with poets like Imtiaz Dharker, Gillian Clarke, Claire Pollard, and Nadine Ayesha Jassat.
Dharker is a celebrated poet, artist and film maker. She was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (2014). Gillian Clarke was the National Poet of Wales (2008-2016) and The Silence is her forthcoming book. Claire Pollard is the author of five collections of poems, her poem, ‘Pollen,’ was nominated for the Forward Prize, for Best Single Poem, 2022. Nadine Jassat is the Writer in Residence with Scottish Book Trust and wrote the collection, Let Me Tell You This. The event is a wonderful opportunity for literature lovers to interact with well-known Bengali Dalit feminist poet, Kalyani Thakur Charal, winner of the Sparrow Literary Award (2007), widely published Guajarati poet, Indu Joshi; she wrote the collection Gajar (Sahitya Akademi), Adivasi writer-activist, Santhali poet from Jharkhand, Nirmala Putul Murmu. Murmu has one collection of poetry in Santhali and one in Hindi. She has received several accolades for her work. Popular Telugu Poet, Gorati Venkanna, known for his Sufi, mystic approach will also read from his works.
Prof. T Vijay Kumar, Director, Hyderabad Literary Festivals says, “The one-day poetry festival is a natural extension of HLF’s sustained focus on poetry, which often gets sidelined or ghettoized in major literary events.” It was only natural to usher HLF 2023 with a poetry festival. In fact, in the very first edition of HLF in 2010, an overwhelming majority of the 75-odd writers who participated were poets representing nearly two dozen Indian languages. Since then, numerous celebrated poets from India and abroad, have enriched the HLF’s audiences with their work. Then in the 2019 edition of the festival, HLF created an independent track for poetry, perhaps the only multi-genre, mainstream literary festival to do so. In 2021, while inaugurating HLF 2021, the eminent poet Gulzar wished for an occasion where one could hear poets reading in their own languages. The present multilingual poetry festival is a modest attempt to create one such platform.
Hyderabad has always been a city of bards and cultural thinkers. Post-pandemic, this event aims to reach a wider audience and raise a feast of languages. Entry to the festival is free.
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