Recourse to poetry

Kavita Kosh, an online repository of Hindi language poems conducted a Facebook LIVE for poetry enthusiasts on May 12, as per maintaining the lockdown norms of social distancing due to COVID-19.

Here, the well-known poet Ashok Vajpeyi spoke about the charms of poetry while centring the talk on acclaimed Hindi language poets. Vajpeyi, who is associated with this literary genre for over six decades  now, as both a writer and reader of poems, said it was challenging to select the poems to be recited for this event.

“I have selected small poems to be recited here because it may be difficult for everyone to sit through the longer poems,” he said during the online event which went on for more than 45 minutes.

He went on to describe the role of poems in individuals’ life. "A poem brings one the truth. It also brings minute things to the fore, which one often fails to notice because of busy schedules. A poem could be about a bird, a dog or it could also be about human relations and nature. Many subjects fit into geography of a poem."

Furthermore, Vajpeyi introduced the listeners to stalwarts like Trilochan Shastri, Maithili Sharan Gupt, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh among others who added new narratives to the genre.

He ended the session by saying that a poem cannot remove the shadows but can give you a ray of hope.  “What else a poem can do apart from this and similarly, what else we all can do apart from this,” he concluded, leaving the viewers with this slice of wisdom.