What does a day mean to those who live poetry everyday? Good question. Just like you cannot reduce your dad and mom into a date because you have Father’s day or Mother’s day we will have to just take it as A day, and make sure poetry is reflected in our life every day. And it is not that tough. You do not need to write, you can just read a poem a day.

Over the past many years’ poetry has been a part of my life like many others I know. And Last year I decided to take my love for poetry further by doing poetry projects all along the year. From a 30 day love haiku towards the valentine’s day and then a whole month poetry with one poem a day during April the ‘National Poetry Month’.

I also started the PenPositive Reading Campaign where I took an international poet everyday and read and recorded a poem that went on for almost 150 days. I also did a micropoetry session that went on and off last year and still continues.

This year poetry took a new shape for me. I started this weekly podcast in Malayalam (my mother tongue) where every week I attempt to translate a poem from English (translated to English) to Malayalam. Next week is going to be Miguel Pinero and his ‘Lower East Side Poem’.

As they said in Poetry might be something people fucking hate, but poetry is like Truth and it also lets people get the truth unadulterated. That is why some poetry is painful and for some they say they do not understand it. But then there are many in the world who do not want to understand the truth.

Poetry might not pay but it sure makes you complete and you can ask that to anyone who regularly reads or writes poetry. So this year my mission is to bring poetry to people who do not think they have it in them to love this form of art. I will be setting up workshops and small group engagements to read and write and get together.

Why Corporates? the reason is simple, Art and literature in olden times used to be funded by Kings and folks with money and a love for it and so poets and artists could spend a lot time doing it. Today the Government and non profits and some corporates do it. But poets do not make a living just out of poetry. I am not saying that is possible, but I think the corporate sector that spends a lot for many activities can give poetry and poets the needed push. But how? Well that is going to be my project for this year. Through PenPositive I will promote poetry to individuals and poets to corporates. Impossible? Well you do not die when you fail trying, you just become more alive.
Happy Poetry Day to All

Sharing you a poem on Poetry I wrote a few years back

Why Poetry?
———–
Poetry gives your life back to you
The life that you abandoned on the busy street
The life that you let people trample on
The life that you lost in the corporate corridors
Poetry gives that life back to you

Poetry tells you that you are more
More than what the mirror can ever show you
More than what you can see in other’s eyes
Much more than what your senses can ever savor
Poetry tells you that you are much more

Poetry gives you a sense of hope
The hope that there will always be a tomorrow
The hope that it would be better than today
The hope that you and I will be there to see it
Poetry gives you and me the hope

Poetry empowers you to feel
To feel the pain of the millions unknown
To feel the plight of those dead, alive and to be born
To acknowledge the existence of things other than you
Poetry empowers you to be a human again

Poetry challenges you to respond
Respond to the meaning hidden in the words
Respond to the silent requests in the lines
Respond to those for whom it is written
Poetry challenges you to change the world

Poetry makes you believe again
Believe that you can do it now
Believe that it is always worth
Believe that goodness prevails
Poetry makes you believe beyond limits

Poetry is all you will have in life
When silence becomes unbearable
When loneliness also un-friends you
When you are the last life form on earth
Poetry is all you will have in life

Categories: Events

Tags: World Poetry Day