The Poetry with Prakriti Festival

(2014) About Poetry Festival 2014

‘Poetry with Prakriti’ is an annual festival featuring 25 eminent and emerging poets, each presenting four different readings of their poems to small, intimate audiences at several venues across the city – schools, colleges, cafes, IT parks, green public parks, shops, galleries, boutiques, banks and other commercial establishments. The festival is scheduled everywhere, to coincide with the famed ‘ Season’. The aim of the Poetry with Prakriti festival is to get poets from varied backgrounds to read and share their poetry in various languages at different locations across the city. This allows multiple groups of people to enjoy creative expression rendered through poetry. Over the years, we have presented 200 poets from across , and from countries such as Spain, France, Canada, U.K, Denmark, Switzerland and the U.S.A. This festival has featured poets such as Keki N.Daruwalla, Charles Stein (USA), Arundhathi Subramaniam, Denis Mai R(USA), Sudeep Sen, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Bina Sarkar Ellias, Anne-Marie Kenessey (Switzerland) Kalki Subramaniam, Parvathi Nayar, Renuka Narayan, Anupama Raju, Jeremy Woodruff, Raghavendra Madhu, to name a few. As part of the festival, a Poetry Slam Contest has been conducted in the past. The top three poems are awarded cash prizes. The 8th edition of Poetry with Prakriti Festival was presented by Lit for Life 2015 as a precursor to the literary festival. Schedule

MORNING EVENING Date/Day Poet Venue Poet Venue Jessy James Bishnu MGR Janaki MGR Janaki Lafleur/ Aditi Mohapatra/ (9.00am) (1.00pm) Rao Linda Ashok Virginia SDNB Vaishnav Aditi Rao/Alvin Kalakshetra Jealous/Kaye (10.00am) Pang (2.00pm) Aldenhoven Rochelle 3rd Hippocampus Potkar/Jennifer MCC (10.00am) Kaye Aldenhoven December (5.00pm) Wednesday Robertson Dirk Aditi Rao/ Jessy NIFT JBAS (11:30am) Hülstrunk/Jessy James Lafleur (4.30pm) James Lafleur Rochelle Alliance Asan Memorial Inauguration - Potkar/Jennifer Francaise (12.00noon) Poetry Festival Robertson (7.00pm)

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Geralyn Aditi MGR Janaki Ethiraj Pinto/Jennifer Rao/Rochelle (9.00am) (12.30pm) Robertson Potkar Bishnu Akhil Madras SDNB Vaishnav Mohapatra/Linda Khatyal/Bishnu University (10.00am) Ashok Mohapatra (2.00pm) Aditi Rao/Alvin Kids Central WCC (10.00am) Linda Ashok Pang (1.00pm) Kalakshetra 4th Akhil Katyal KFI (10.30am) Suman Sridhar December (2.00pm) Thursday St. Mary's Dirk Hülstrunk MCC (10.00am) Dirk Hülstrunk Matr. (3.00pm) Rochelle Potkar/Jessy British Jessy James James Lafleur/ Council Asan Memorial Lafleur/Geralyn Bishnu (5.00pm) (12.00noon) Pinto Mohapatra Spaces Suman Sridhar (7.00pm) Geralyn Kalakshetra Sourav Roy/Alvin P.S.Senior Pinto/Shobana (8.45am) Pang (12.30pm) Kumar Abacus Sourav Roy/Akhil Ethiraj (10.30am) Akhil Katyal Montessori Katyal (12.30pm) Kids Central Lady Andal Alvin Pang Dirk Hülstrunk (11:00am) (3.00pm) Virginia Stella Maris Jealous/Kaye Gujarati Panel ACJ (5.15pm) (10.00am) 5th Aldenhoven December Geralyn Anna Adharsh Samasta Friday Gujarati Panel Pinto/Jennifer (8.30am) (4.00pm) Robertson Apparao Dirk Hülstrunk Vidyodaya (8.50am) Gallery KM Conservatory (7.00pm) Dirk Hülstrunk (11.00am) Linda Ashok Shobana Asan Memorial Kumar/Subhadip (12.00noon) Maitra

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Stella Maris Gujarati Panel (8.45am) Cholmandal Subhadip Gujarati Panel Kalakshetra (5.00pm) Maitra/Sourav (8.45am) Roy Suddhananda Subhadip Maitra Vidyalaya(10:45am) Shobana 6th Kumar/Subhadip TFL (5.00pm) December Suddhananda Maitra Saturday Shobana Kumar Vidyalaya(10:45am)

Hari Shree Sourav Vidyalayam Roy/Linda Ashok Goethe (11.30am) Dirk Hülstrunk Institut Anna (7.00pm) Dirk Hülstrunk Adarsh(10:00am) PMA Dirk Hülstrunk Musicals 7th Cholamandal (4.00pm) December Dirk Hülstrunk (11.00am) Virginia Shilpi Sunday Jealous/Kaye (Besant Aldenhoven Nagar - 5:30) Virginia Anna Primrose Jealous/Kaye Dirk Hülstrunk Adarsh(09.30am) (1.30pm) Aldenhoven 8th SDNB December Dirk Hülstrunk Vaishnav(10.00am) Virginia Monday Jealous/Kaye IIT (4.30pm) Virginia Aldenhoven Jealous/Kaye MCC (12.00noon) Aldenhoven Virigina Madras Dirk Hülstrunk Ethiraj (10:00am) Jealous/Kaye University Aldenhoven (3.30pm) 9th Hindu Senior Sujatha Shankar Anna Adarsh December Manohar Shetty School Kumar + Srilatha (09.30am) Tuesday (1.30pm) Virginia Alliance Jealous/Kaye WCC (10.00am) POETRY SLAM Française Aldenhoven (3.00pm)

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Manohar Shetty/Dibyajyoti DAV (11:30am) Sarma Virginia Manohar Queen Mary's L'Amandier Jealous/Kaye Shetty/Dibyajyoti (12.00noon) (7.00pm) Aldenhoven Sarma Hindu Senior Stella Maris Dirk Hülstrunk Dibyajyoti Sarma School (9.00am) (1.30pm) Manohar Madras Shetty/Dibyajyoti WCC (10.00am) Dirk Hülstrunk University 10th Sarma (12.30pm) December Ashvita Café Wednesday Dirk Hülstrunk (5.00pm) Sujatha Shankar Queen Mary's Kumar/Sharanya Vidya Shah (10.00am) Manivannan performance - Kalakshetra Melting into the (7.00pm) lyric

Artiste Profile

1. Virginia Jealous Virginia Jealous writes on travel journalism, essays and poetry. She’s also written many guidebooks for travel websites like Lonely Planet, and is published in a range of newspapers, magazines and journals. Her most recent collection of poetry and prose, Hidden World, emerged from an Asia link writing residency in India, was published by Hallowell Press in 2013. Virginia lives out of a suitcase and on the road when not at home in Denmark, Western Australia. 2. Kaye Aldenhoven Kaye Aldenhoven lives in North Australia in the wet-dry tropics. She is passionate about family, her garden, Northern Territory plants and birds, Northern Territory history and poetry. Kaye has three published collection: In my husband’s country, SKIN and Botanica erotica from Chris Mansell’s Press. Twice Kaye has won NT Poetry Award.

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3. Alvin Pang Alvin Pang was named 2005 Young Artist of the Year (Literature) by the National Arts Council Singapore. He holds a First Class Honours degree in English literature from the University of York and an Honorary Fellowship in Writing from the 's International Writing Program (2002). For his contributions, he was conferred the Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture) in 2007, and the JCCI Foundation Education Award in 2008. An entry on Pang appears in the 2nd edition of The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English (Oxford University Press, 2013). 4. Dirk Heulstrunk Huelstrunk (b. 1964) is an internationally active sound and spoken word poet, writer, creative writing teacher and curator of artandpoetry events from FrankfurtandMain, Germany. His influences range from Dada, Surrealists, Fluxus, Beatpoets to Pop and modern electronic sound-poetry. He works with and between different media and frequently collaborates with artists & musicians. Huelstrunk lectures on sound poetry & spoken word and is also one of the pioneers of the Poetry Slam movement in Germany, organizing Poetry Slam and Spoken Word events since 1996. 5. Jessy James Lafleur Jessy James Lafleur is a travelling poet, wandering a million paths on this earth as a nomad since almost 13 years, always on the quest for new adventures to write about. She speaks 6 languages and uses 3 of them to interpret the colourful thoughts and ideas that run in her mind: Sometimes mellow and literarily, at times loud and demanding, Jessy tries to make every listener part of her own story. She performs her creations worldwide and since 2013 mainly in Germany, the UK and Belgium. She hosts 3 poetry shows in Berlin, Biesenthal and Hannover. She is the initiator of a writing project for young people from the Middle East and works currently on her first light-hearted book called 'Confessions of a paper plane'. 'The stories of the humans make my pen move, I only act as intermediary between them and the blank pages that urge to be filled.' (Jessy James Lafleur).

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6. Jayant Parmar Jayant Parmar is a bilingual poet writing in Gujarati and Urdu. He learnt Urdu at the age of 30 and began to write poetry in the same language. He is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu in 2008 for his collection Pencil Aur Doosri Nazmein. He lives and works in Ahmedabad. 7. Jitendra Vasaya Jitendra Vasava (1979) works at the Adivasi Academy in Tejgadh and edits the journal of Adivasi writing, Lakhaaro as well as a journal on education. 8. Vaishakh Rathod Vaishakh Rathod is an actor, poet and teacher. He works with Budhan Theatre in Ahmedabad and has a collection titled Budhankegeet in Hindi to his credit. 9. Gopika Jadeja Gopika Jadeja edits and publishes a printed journal and a series of pamphlets for a performance-publishing project called Five Issues. She teaches at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. She has organised and convened school-specific festivals of arts and has collaborated on short term and long-term projects on writing for poets against War (India), DNA newspaper and NID-Ahmedabad. She is currently working on an anthology of translations of poetry from Gujarat and another collection of poetry. 10. Aditi Rao Aditi Rao is a writer, educator, and dreamer. Passionate about peace education, Aditi has worked extensively in the youth development and social change arenas, particularly in examining the role of the arts in social change. Aditi's poetry has appeared in Four Quarters magazine, Muse India, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and other publications. Her essays have been featured in People Building Peace 2.0 (published by the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict), Moments that Speak: Images and Stories of Connection (published by the Earth Charter Initiative) and InfochangeIndia. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Fingers Remember, was released by Yoda Press in November 2014. Winner of the 2011 Srinivas Rayaprol Prize for Poetry and the 2013 Toto Funds the Arts Creative Writing in English Award, Aditi currently lives in New , where she works as a consultant for non-profit organizations in the field of education for peace, facilitates creative writing and research writing workshops, and carves out time for her twin passions of poetry and pottery.

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11. Akhil Katyal Akhil Katyal is a writer and translator based in Delhi. His first poetry book "Night Charge Extra" was released at the Writers Workshop in early 2015. He was selected as one of the five best emerging Indian writers to be invited to participate in the Writers of India festival in Paris earlier this year. He finished his PhD at SOAS, University of London in 2011 and has been based in Delhi ever since where he teaches literature. His poetry and translations between Hindi and English have been published widely. 12. Manohar Shetty Manohar Shetty has published seven books of poems, including ‘Domestic Creatures’ (Oxford University Press, New Delhi). His new books are ‘Creatures Great and Small’ (Copper Coin, N Delhi; 2014) and ‘Living Room’ (HarperCollins. N Delhi). In the UK, his poems have appeared in ‘London Magazine’, ‘Poetry Review’, ‘Wasafiri’ and ‘Poetry Wales’. He has co-edited a special edition on English language poets of India for ‘Poetry Wales’. In the United States, his poems have appeared in ‘Chelsea’, ‘Rattapallax’, ‘Fulcrum’, ‘Shenandoah’, ‘The Common’, ‘Atlanta Review’, ‘The Baffler’ and ‘New Letters’, and in ‘Helix’ in Australia. Several anthologies feature his work, notably ‘The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets’ (Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, OUP, N Delhi) and in anthologies edited by Eunice de Souza and Vilas Sarang. His poems have been translated into Italian, Finnish, German, Croatian and Slovenian. He has edited ‘Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from ’ (Penguin India). ‘Goa Travels’, an anthology of travel writings, his forthcoming from Rupa Shetty is Homi Bhabha Fellow and a Senior Sahitya Akademi Fellow. He has lived in Goa since 1985. 13. Sourav Roy

Sourav Roy has authored 3 books of Hindi poems titled अनभ्ररात्रिकीअनुपमा, उत्रिष्ठभारत and यायावर. His poems have been published in almost all major Hindi literary magazines. He has won two national level awards for his poetry. He is the editor of कर्णकत्रवता, an anthology of Hindi poets based in Bangalore, published by Atta Galatta, Bangalore. He has translated American historian Howard Zinn's plays into Hindi, which will be published sometime in 2015.He also writes articles in English, most of which can be read in his website - souravroy.com. He is a political columnist in the London based NRI magazine (the-nri.com) which dedicates itself to the vast majority of Indians living abroad. 14. Suman Sridhar Suman Sridhar is a counter culture artist and performer. Raised in with a foundation in the traditional Indian performing arts, Suman went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Women's & Gender Studies from Rutgers University, USA. In 2008, she co-founded Sridhar and Thayil, the contemporary music duo which Rolling Stone India magazine acclaimed as "the most experimental Indian indie has got." Suman has

8 delivered Bollywood and viral hits such as Khoya Khoya Chand, Muskaane Jhooti Hain and Evening in Gay . Suman traverses the mediums of music, art, poetry, film, theatre and movement. Her sound design and performance art exhibitions include Between the Waves by Tejal Shah at dOCUMENTA (13) (Kassel, 2012), Sarai Reader 09 (New Delhi, 2012) and Transformation 19124 (Philadelphia, 2013). Her noted live and televised performances include The Great Escape Festival (UK), Jazzmandu Festival (Nepal), Southbank Centre (UK), Galle Literary Festival (Sri Lanka), Coke Studio (MTV India). She was nominated for several awards in 2013 including Best Female Playback Singer-Times of India Film Awards, Best Female Indie Artist - MTV Video Music Awards India and Album of the Year - Jack Daniel's Rock Awards. Suman debuted as actor in feature film Ajeeb Aashiq by international award-winning filmmaker Natasha Mendonca (IFFR, 2016). She was awarded the Google-INK Trailblazer’s Grant 2014 towards developing a multimedia performance on loss and the female voice. 15. Linda Ashok Linda Ashok is the Founder and President of RædLeafPoetry-India (rlpoetry.org). She identifies herself as a pro-Tibetan and is currently working on her second poetry manuscript. 16. Jennifer Robertson Jennifer Robertson is an ex-banker, currently working as a CSR consultant in Mumbai. Her poems and book reviews have appeared and are forthcoming in various print and e- anthologies published by Nivasini Publishers, Poetry Chain, Poet's Corner, The Telegraph, RædLeafPoetry India etc. Jennifer’s work is a blitzkrieg of memory and time driven themes veering from experimental prose poems to non-punctuated stream of consciousness pieces. She's currently working on her first poetry manuscript. 17. Rochelle Potkar Born in small town of Kalyan, Rochelle Potkar craved big city only to realize that Bombay was a small town in the large world. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in several publications. Her first book, 'The Arithmetic of Breasts and Other Stories' was shortlisted for The Digital Book of the Year Award by Publishing Next. Her next book, ‘Dreams of Déjà vu’ is a speculative novel. She lives in the ‘panoramic’ city of Mumbai with people real and imagined. 18. Shobhana Kumar Shobhana Kumar’s first volume of poetry, ‘The Voices Never Stop,’ was published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta in 2012. Her second volume of poetry is titled, ‘*Conditions Apply’ 2014. Her work is also featured in ‘The Dance of the Peacock—An Anthology of

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English Poetry from India’ edited by Dr. Vivekanand Jha, ‘Suvarnarekha – An Anthology of Contemporary Indian Women Poets Writing in English—edited by Dr. Nandini Sahu,’ ‘Enchanting Echoes—Poetry Society, India, edited by Dr. Sangeeta Kaul’, among others. Her work has also appeared in prestigious literary journals across the USA, UK, Canada and in India. She has authored five books of non-fiction—Coimbatore, The Emerging Indian Cosmopolis, SIMA—A journey Through 75 Years, Lakshmi, An Inspiring Legacy, An Event Called Life, Dr. P.C. Thomas in Conversation with Shobhana Kumar and Illumine— Celebrating 100 years of Dr. G.R. Damodaran. She is currently working on the story of the Sankara Eye Care Institutions and is documenting their growth story of one million free eye surgeries. When not writing, she works as an advertising consultant, communications trainer and storyteller. She is the founder of Small Differences, an NGO that works with homeless abandoned people and underprivileged children. The organisation hopes to take creative art forms to empower children from poverty backgrounds and rehabilitate abandoned people in environments that are conducive to them. 19. Subhadip Maitra Subhadip Maitra was born in 1980 and stays at Kolkata. After finishing his Masters in Journalism from Calcutta University he joined the television news media. He worked in ABP Ananda and various Bengali news media. He started writing poems and short stories from 2005and has written articles and edited books as well. His poetries, short stories and essays have been published in various magazines of West Bengal, Bangladesh and USA. His first book of poem Jadukari Boighar was published in 2014. One of his short stories was published in an anthology of Short stories of first decade named Shunya Doshoker Golpo Sangraha. He has also edited books and booklets on various issues. Sachar Report & Problems of Minority in India, Marginalization and Sixty Years of Independence, West Asia Crisis are a few of them. 20. Geralyn Pinto Geralyn Pinto is Associate Professor and Head, Department of English at St Agnes College (Autonomous), Mangalore. She is an accomplished poet and short story writer. At the 2013 International Shakespearean Creative Writing Contest organized by the Save as Writers group, Canterbury, her story won the Third Prize in an otherwise all-English final. Her poems have been featured in the journals published by the University of Leeds and Mahidol University, Thailand as also in Cha: an Asian Literary Journal, among others. “Shot through with Metal”, a poem, was featured in an anthology of prize winning poetry on Human Rights published in October 2013 by the University of London. Geralyn was invited to attend the launch. Among her other significant achievements were the Runners up Prize in the 2005 Outlook Magazine – Picador (India) Non-Fiction Writing Contest; Special Prizes for two of her

10 stories in the 2008 Unisun-Reliance Timeout Creative Writing Contest, and First Prize for her short story, ‘Two is Company’ in the 2010 Unisun-Reliance Timeout Creative Writing Contest. Her story ‘Two Flew Over’ on the theme of child labour was one of the three winners of the 2013 International Desi Writers Lounge Contest. In the 2013 RædLeaf Poetry India Contest, Geralyn’s poem ‘Last Crow Summer’ made it to the shortlist. She earned an M. Phil and PhD from the University of Mangalore, was invited last October to deliver a lecture in two sessions at the School of English, Queen’s University, Belfast. More recently she was declared one of the three winners in the 2014 International Desi Writers Lounge Contest for her short story ‘Shanthi Smells of Smoke’. Her story, ‘Field Pumpkin’ has been shortlisted for the 2014 Save as Writers Contest titled ‘The Bigger Picture: Reflections on WWI’, in the short fiction section. Her oeuvre in fiction spans human interest, science fiction, low grade detective fiction, the supernatural and bizarre combinations of the aforementioned. She confesses to a love of elementary mathematics and an addiction to Sudoku. She enjoys housekeeping and cooking with a special emphasis on baking rich chocolate cake. She belongs to the online British writers group, Alibi. 21. Dibyajyoti Sarma Dibyajyoti Sarma is the author of two volumes of poems, ‘Glimpses of a Personal History’ (Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata, 2004) and Pages from an Unfinished Autobiography (i write imprint, New Delhi, 2014) and the co-editor (with Dr R Raj Rao) of the book 'Whistling in the Dark: Twenty-One Queer Interviews (Sage, 2009). By day, he is a PhD scholar, who has published papers on Indian Writing in English and Queer Theory and by evening, he is the senior copy editor with a national daily, and by night, he is a creative writer, who has published short stories and poems in various journals. Originally from Guwahati, Assam and having a life in Pune, Maharashtra for the last 14 years, he now struggles in Delhi.

22. Bishnu Mohapatra Bishnu Mohapatra was born in Odisha and spent his early years in its rural hinterland. He was educated in Odisha, Delhi and Oxford. He taught in several universities including University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Kyoto and National University of Singapore. He does his social science in English and his poetry in Odia. Bishnu has authored three books of poetry and has translated two volumes of Pablo Neruda’s poetry into Odia. A volume of his poetry in the English translation – a fragile world- was published in 2005. His poetry combines multiple voices, places and visions, and tends to draw the readers into the ambivalence of the past and the present. A heightened sense of fragility of lives permeates his work, and his poetry combines powerfully the anguish of the ‘disenchanted world’ with the ecstasy of human relationships. He enjoys sharing his poetic works with others and has read his poetry in many cities including, Bali, Bangalore,

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Bhubaneswar, Bombay, Delhi, Johannesburg, Kathmandu, Mexico City, Mysore and Singapore. Currently he is a Professor at the Azim Premji University, Bangalore.

Press The Hindu, 2 November, 2014 – Tracing the journey of poetry with prakriti http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/tracing-the-journey-of-poetry-with- prakriti/article6555156.ece The Hindu, 3 December, 2014 - 'Every nanosecond is an experience' http://www.thehindu.com/features/lit-for-life/poetry-with-prakriti-linda- ashok/article6658407.ece The Hindu, 10 January, 2015 – Through the poet's lens http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/poetry-with-prakriti-festival-panel-on- gujarati-poetry/article6775297.ece The Hindu, 4 December, 2014 – Poetry session in Chennai gives a taste of lit fest http://www.thehindu.com/features/lit-for-life/poetry-session-in-chennai-gives-a-taste-of- lit-fest/article6659198.ece The Hindu, 6 December, 2014 – Verse comes to verse http://www.thehindu.com/features/lit-for-life/verse-comes-to-verse/article6667703.ece Time out, 3 December, 2014 – Inauguration https://www.timeout.com/chennai/events/poetry-with-prakriti-2014-inauguration The Hindu, 6 December, 2014 – Words for the soul http://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20141206/282729110225706

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