[Music]
my name is Zambia and I have been given
the rather daunting task of representing
a very powerful concept in front of you
one that I am infinitely passionate
about and also very sensitively attached
to and that concept of course is of
poetry the only aim
I’d have through the course of my
conversation with you would be that you
all leave this hall a little friendlier
with poetry then you had been before you
came in here
we’ll begin with honesty when I was in
school I did not get poetry in fact it
was the only part of my literature book
that I did not read in advance how many
feel here resonate with this how many of
you did not understand poetry and did
not especially understand when your
teacher told you which I read in between
the lines right I have company then for
the others Bravo now like I said I never
understood what it was about reading in
between the lines till the time and I
couldn’t find anything there I mean
there was blank space till the time my
teacher would handhold me towards
meanings that she constructed for me but
the eternal rebel that I am and the
fiercely independent person that have
happened to become I could never accept
meanings that others made through I
could never establish a relationship
with poetry basis what others were
telling me what it was supposed to mean
and so I understood a fundamental thing
for me to be friendly with poetry or for
that matter for anyone to be friendly
with poetry what is necessary is owning
it what is necessary is creating an
independent relationship on an
independent association with it what is
necessary was exposing your raw self to
it to understand what resonates with you
what stays in your heart what echoes in
your head
once you try and sleep at night so my
actual dalliance with poetry began say
about half a decade ago in Delhi Delhi
at that point of time was not teeming
but so many poor
it’s emerging out of all nooks and
crannies and belting out poem after poem
after poem at that point of time they
still had to go to people and tell them
please agile look at a voltaic with
various of nickel Jagger and we used to
do poems on footpaths on roadsides I was
telling someone I’m a very pedestrian
for it and poetry meetups organizer we
used to do poetry in monuments the idea
was to take poetry to people and this
idea did take us to solution because
magic happened and I could do not when I
used the word magic two years ago I was
at a meet-up
in a greasy and key Bali in CP a lovely
Nishi monument and there was this lady
fair plum chubby any toot emanated a lot
of warmth and when she took her
make-believe stage I was very sure that
she’s gonna she’s gonna narrate a
recital love poem and I’m gonna side
along with her only that didn’t happen
she recited a poem that nearly shocked
us because that poem was about
independence this poem was about
individuality when she was being wailed
under the magical cloak and this poem
was about finding her own identity when
communities came together to cause
confusions and chaos of customs on and
literally after she stopped reciting
qualifies we were what fifty of us we
were zapped for a while we applauded
Hurley once we got out of our reveries
of independent remedies and once the
meter got over I cornered her outside
and I asked her that hey are you like a
published poet because what you recited
was wow that was mind-blowing and this
lady started crying and I couldn’t
understand why and what I got to learn
and what I got to hear from her was the
fact that she had been writing for a
good 10 to 15 years of her life out of
it seven years she had been married and
neither her parents not as her husband
know that she wrote to her closest
people and she I can tell you with I
avoid what like about 2500 poems in
person you know with other mediums you
tubes and all you can shut them out you
can check books but once people are in
front of you
irrespective of the kind of content that
comes in front of you you have to listen
to it and you have to develop patience
along with appreciation because no
matter the kind of content that comes in
front of you someone is really out there
sharing their stories so in that moment
I I felt very weird and in that second I
felt perhaps there is no greater kind of
torture than not being able to share
expressions of deeply felt emotions with
the very people you are living with
sharing rooms with sharing your bed with
and on another separate occasion I was
given the task of teaching poetry to a
group of mothers as if teaching poetry
was also was even possible but I still
took the task head-on and we designed an
activity this activity was supposed to
have levels of self-discovery after
which the audience these participants
and these these were all mothers like I
said they were supposed to surmise their
entire life and existence in front of us
in one line out of the twenty
submissions that I got to I remember and
– I want to share with all you see one
mother said you might find it funny or
inconsequential but try and find
meanings in it one of the mothers said I
am a giraffe without sports said okay
another mother said I’m a unicorn that
only my child thinks is real and we said
Wow
now I also want you to think along what
do you find common in these two
expressions as well as the earlier story
that I generated up to there is a
certain sense of elusiveness there is a
certain sense of trying to find yourself
in things that do not exist there is a
certain sense of shedding of any kind of
cloak of perception or definitions that
anyone around you might have imposed to
you this is the beauty of poetry it
allows you to be whoever you want to be
even if that whoever has yet not started
existing you create that whether you
create that someone and you create that
someone that something out of resources
that have yet not appeared on the
horizon this dear friends was the point
at which poetry started becoming
something so personal to me so inspiring
to me and it started it suddenly became
something I wanted to take to everyone
around me and then I started on this
path my journeys across the city were
going on in cafes and monuments in
footpaths like I said on the roadside
and we started creating these meetups
which we call poets collective in which
all they promised people was a safe
non-judgmental and an open nurturing
place where we will listen to you we
can’t give you anything else
we can’t give you platforms and
accolades and publishing and whatever
what we can give you is a genuine
genuine group of people who will listen
to whatever you have to say and like I
had said earlier magic continued to
happen I could have one apprehension
though if anyone here has studied
literature poetry is supposed to confine
itself to certain aesthetic parameters
that are higher on distance and I did
ask myself that by taking poetry to the
streets and I died looting RV not me we
are a group of a lot of people I forget
some level diluting
this very institution which the greats
like Iliad and our Shahi 30 and Dylan
Thomas and words Keats and Byron and
Kalidas and pass and be ours and so many
others have stood up for and then one of
my friends came to my rescue and he said
you know Sami I’ve attended these
meetups and I have seen what people are
sharing here our voices our poems our
expressions based on their personal
experiences as well as their personal
emotions and how can you create a
gradation among them how can you really
go out and say that this person’s
emotions were better than this other
person’s experiences that not happened
that ail allayed so many of my fears and
I could go on again proudly listening to
poems just link them giving advice or
just sometimes people don’t want to be
great poets they just want to be out
there with this one poem that they would
have scribbled and the back side of
their registers when they were in
perhaps third or fourth grade about
their first or second preference they
want to tell you about a certain foolish
morning they had when taps had run dry
and they had to rush to office and I
have actually received a very good I’ve
heard this really amazing poem which is
almost like a social comment but which
was born in this situation of whatever
what Allah staffs in the morning when
you had to run to the office
I have also known of poems that come out
of heart breaks cause do to someone and
friending you on facebook and couple of
us could sneer about it which we are but
in that moment imagine your best friend
just unfriending you on Facebook it’s
like the calamity of our times and not
one I’ve got 20 bones on the same
subject not kidding you again
I have heard poems where subjects like
deaths have been expertly cloaked by my
variable members of of the gang of the
club in an attempt to philosophize it to
comfort themselves but what it ended up
doing when it was recited on a portal
where we said we are listening it ended
up consoling and calming so many more
who
yet not even perhaps thought enough
about death let alone make their peace
with the loss of a beloved there were
others writing about the temptations of
love and maturing into writing about the
pains and the shattered ings and the
heartbreaks of love and I was enjoying
all but one question that remained with
me to think about and and was viewed
because we never thought about this
question what is poetry
and I’ve done this I’ve been on the
roads I’ve read I’ve given exams but no
one had really sucked me down to make me
understand what is this thing what is
poetry is it an art is it is it a craft
is it art and craft both is an art first
craft later are these two terms
synonymous is it pure aesthetics is it
pure emotions is it the aesthetics of
emotions are these questions relevant I
do not know but there were two things I
understood about poetry one it said more
unless through a finite quantity of
words it can wait meanings far beyond
perhaps our immediate comprehension the
best of poets have been labeled as
people before their times as people
whose ramblings came true
yours and here is Lita and the second
thing I understood about poetry which is
what gives it the power is its capacity
to turn the intangibles into tangibles
the intangible experiences into tangible
words see a tangible chair is the chair
but the intangible feeling of love could
be could be the sprouting or the opening
of a rose part for someone it could be
the first ray of the Sun hitting the dew
drop scattering into these many colors
for another someone it could be the
familiar smell and warmth of gritty chai
and for someone else it could be the
edginess associated with walking one
pinpricks because you’re not sure of
what the beloved has thought about you
in your heart and I had answers that
made me understand why are people
connecting to poetry why is it better
and make them sit down they all nod
their heads away as if they know what
this is they know what they’re feeling
is whereas they might not know each
other you don’t know these poets that I
deal with in Delhi but we all know
Wordsworth and when he writes about
death and he says she lived unknown and
few could know when Lucy sees to me but
she is in her grave and oh the
difference too simple and it still gives
me goosebumps at some level some final
angle or part of it
or when Dylan Thomas comes out and he
will subvert death and he will subvert
all kinds of stoppages or blockage
blockages in in man’s path and he will
tell you do not go gentle into the good
night rage rage against the dying of
light for those who watch interstellar
these verses might be common and isn’t
it amazing that poetry is the spirit
holding together a film that’s based on
experimental futuristic physics which in
poor academic performance and all make
peace with evident life how wonderful is
it when Alexander Pope will sermonize
you and tell you to not look at God for
all answers rather he will tell you know
then thyself ask not got to scan the
proper study of mankind is man or when
my favorite poet al-shahid le would come
out and recite an english wuzzle that
exists in which towards the end he will
subvert God and he will say an ayah hip
I am only escaped to tell the god sobs
in my arms call me Ishmael tonight and
if still any of what I’ve spoken out
hasn’t managed to touch your heart let’s
get closer to our context let’s perhaps
go to gules ours aha
who will take you through a vast terrain
of sensorial experiences and tell you
how many they key here on our kooky
mahiti khushboo hearts eight chuckling
rich takayama contemporary critics also
criticize the poem here are Cokie
Khrushchev tuna how is all of this
happening together but my dear friends
it happens on the terrain that poets
navigate and they undertake a journey
all together so what I’m trying to tell
you here is poetry is beautiful and when
I come back to for its collective what I
explicitly tried to do was not to create
a platform of coils for its collective
is not a club of poets it’s a club of
listener and I am adamant on making it
remain one because I do at some level
also believe that throughout history
more than ever the
is the time in our lives that we need
and we deserve listeners so next time I
don’t know open your heart out just not
the person next to you I am sure he has
stories to tell I’m also sure that with
a little bit of pushing here in there
and just telling him out to Express
he’ll be able to share something with
you which might not sound like poetry
but like I told you when he tries to
convey meanings of intangible experience
and emotions using words what you might
encounter would be something beautifully
relatable to your own lives or else open
a book find some poet who your heart
decides to resonate with switch on those
vessels at night that will give you
solace more than any role conversation
with friends might because time-tested
emotions would have already been
invested in that piece of poetry by some
great child or poet or couple and if
none of this pick up a pen pick up a
paper or pick up your hands and put them
to a typewriter a keeper and try writing
something of your own no one really
judges us as much as we end up judging
ourselves and on that note I’d like to
tell you that poetry is supposed to
corrode it’s also supposed to comfort
poetry is supposed to critique but it’s
also supposed to come
poetry is supposed to create confusion
by putting out in front of you
multitudes of emotions but it is also
supposed to caress you in two gentle
somnolence
on the odd days that you actually need
it so there’s art all around there are
individuals out here I hope that to come
together and marry someday and I hope
you enjoy what I had to share with you
thank you so much
you
my name is Zambia and I have been given
the rather daunting task of representing
a very powerful concept in front of you
one that I am infinitely passionate
about and also very sensitively attached
to and that concept of course is of
poetry the only aim
I’d have through the course of my
conversation with you would be that you
all leave this hall a little friendlier
with poetry then you had been before you
came in here
we’ll begin with honesty when I was in
school I did not get poetry in fact it
was the only part of my literature book
that I did not read in advance how many
feel here resonate with this how many of
you did not understand poetry and did
not especially understand when your
teacher told you which I read in between
the lines right I have company then for
the others Bravo now like I said I never
understood what it was about reading in
between the lines till the time and I
couldn’t find anything there I mean
there was blank space till the time my
teacher would handhold me towards
meanings that she constructed for me but
the eternal rebel that I am and the
fiercely independent person that have
happened to become I could never accept
meanings that others made through I
could never establish a relationship
with poetry basis what others were
telling me what it was supposed to mean
and so I understood a fundamental thing
for me to be friendly with poetry or for
that matter for anyone to be friendly
with poetry what is necessary is owning
it what is necessary is creating an
independent relationship on an
independent association with it what is
necessary was exposing your raw self to
it to understand what resonates with you
what stays in your heart what echoes in
your head
once you try and sleep at night so my
actual dalliance with poetry began say
about half a decade ago in Delhi Delhi
at that point of time was not teeming
but so many poor
it’s emerging out of all nooks and
crannies and belting out poem after poem
after poem at that point of time they
still had to go to people and tell them
please agile look at a voltaic with
various of nickel Jagger and we used to
do poems on footpaths on roadsides I was
telling someone I’m a very pedestrian
for it and poetry meetups organizer we
used to do poetry in monuments the idea
was to take poetry to people and this
idea did take us to solution because
magic happened and I could do not when I
used the word magic two years ago I was
at a meet-up
in a greasy and key Bali in CP a lovely
Nishi monument and there was this lady
fair plum chubby any toot emanated a lot
of warmth and when she took her
make-believe stage I was very sure that
she’s gonna she’s gonna narrate a
recital love poem and I’m gonna side
along with her only that didn’t happen
she recited a poem that nearly shocked
us because that poem was about
independence this poem was about
individuality when she was being wailed
under the magical cloak and this poem
was about finding her own identity when
communities came together to cause
confusions and chaos of customs on and
literally after she stopped reciting
qualifies we were what fifty of us we
were zapped for a while we applauded
Hurley once we got out of our reveries
of independent remedies and once the
meter got over I cornered her outside
and I asked her that hey are you like a
published poet because what you recited
was wow that was mind-blowing and this
lady started crying and I couldn’t
understand why and what I got to learn
and what I got to hear from her was the
fact that she had been writing for a
good 10 to 15 years of her life out of
it seven years she had been married and
neither her parents not as her husband
know that she wrote to her closest
people and she I can tell you with I
avoid what like about 2500 poems in
person you know with other mediums you
tubes and all you can shut them out you
can check books but once people are in
front of you
irrespective of the kind of content that
comes in front of you you have to listen
to it and you have to develop patience
along with appreciation because no
matter the kind of content that comes in
front of you someone is really out there
sharing their stories so in that moment
I I felt very weird and in that second I
felt perhaps there is no greater kind of
torture than not being able to share
expressions of deeply felt emotions with
the very people you are living with
sharing rooms with sharing your bed with
and on another separate occasion I was
given the task of teaching poetry to a
group of mothers as if teaching poetry
was also was even possible but I still
took the task head-on and we designed an
activity this activity was supposed to
have levels of self-discovery after
which the audience these participants
and these these were all mothers like I
said they were supposed to surmise their
entire life and existence in front of us
in one line out of the twenty
submissions that I got to I remember and
– I want to share with all you see one
mother said you might find it funny or
inconsequential but try and find
meanings in it one of the mothers said I
am a giraffe without sports said okay
another mother said I’m a unicorn that
only my child thinks is real and we said
Wow
now I also want you to think along what
do you find common in these two
expressions as well as the earlier story
that I generated up to there is a
certain sense of elusiveness there is a
certain sense of trying to find yourself
in things that do not exist there is a
certain sense of shedding of any kind of
cloak of perception or definitions that
anyone around you might have imposed to
you this is the beauty of poetry it
allows you to be whoever you want to be
even if that whoever has yet not started
existing you create that whether you
create that someone and you create that
someone that something out of resources
that have yet not appeared on the
horizon this dear friends was the point
at which poetry started becoming
something so personal to me so inspiring
to me and it started it suddenly became
something I wanted to take to everyone
around me and then I started on this
path my journeys across the city were
going on in cafes and monuments in
footpaths like I said on the roadside
and we started creating these meetups
which we call poets collective in which
all they promised people was a safe
non-judgmental and an open nurturing
place where we will listen to you we
can’t give you anything else
we can’t give you platforms and
accolades and publishing and whatever
what we can give you is a genuine
genuine group of people who will listen
to whatever you have to say and like I
had said earlier magic continued to
happen I could have one apprehension
though if anyone here has studied
literature poetry is supposed to confine
itself to certain aesthetic parameters
that are higher on distance and I did
ask myself that by taking poetry to the
streets and I died looting RV not me we
are a group of a lot of people I forget
some level diluting
this very institution which the greats
like Iliad and our Shahi 30 and Dylan
Thomas and words Keats and Byron and
Kalidas and pass and be ours and so many
others have stood up for and then one of
my friends came to my rescue and he said
you know Sami I’ve attended these
meetups and I have seen what people are
sharing here our voices our poems our
expressions based on their personal
experiences as well as their personal
emotions and how can you create a
gradation among them how can you really
go out and say that this person’s
emotions were better than this other
person’s experiences that not happened
that ail allayed so many of my fears and
I could go on again proudly listening to
poems just link them giving advice or
just sometimes people don’t want to be
great poets they just want to be out
there with this one poem that they would
have scribbled and the back side of
their registers when they were in
perhaps third or fourth grade about
their first or second preference they
want to tell you about a certain foolish
morning they had when taps had run dry
and they had to rush to office and I
have actually received a very good I’ve
heard this really amazing poem which is
almost like a social comment but which
was born in this situation of whatever
what Allah staffs in the morning when
you had to run to the office
I have also known of poems that come out
of heart breaks cause do to someone and
friending you on facebook and couple of
us could sneer about it which we are but
in that moment imagine your best friend
just unfriending you on Facebook it’s
like the calamity of our times and not
one I’ve got 20 bones on the same
subject not kidding you again
I have heard poems where subjects like
deaths have been expertly cloaked by my
variable members of of the gang of the
club in an attempt to philosophize it to
comfort themselves but what it ended up
doing when it was recited on a portal
where we said we are listening it ended
up consoling and calming so many more
who
yet not even perhaps thought enough
about death let alone make their peace
with the loss of a beloved there were
others writing about the temptations of
love and maturing into writing about the
pains and the shattered ings and the
heartbreaks of love and I was enjoying
all but one question that remained with
me to think about and and was viewed
because we never thought about this
question what is poetry
and I’ve done this I’ve been on the
roads I’ve read I’ve given exams but no
one had really sucked me down to make me
understand what is this thing what is
poetry is it an art is it is it a craft
is it art and craft both is an art first
craft later are these two terms
synonymous is it pure aesthetics is it
pure emotions is it the aesthetics of
emotions are these questions relevant I
do not know but there were two things I
understood about poetry one it said more
unless through a finite quantity of
words it can wait meanings far beyond
perhaps our immediate comprehension the
best of poets have been labeled as
people before their times as people
whose ramblings came true
yours and here is Lita and the second
thing I understood about poetry which is
what gives it the power is its capacity
to turn the intangibles into tangibles
the intangible experiences into tangible
words see a tangible chair is the chair
but the intangible feeling of love could
be could be the sprouting or the opening
of a rose part for someone it could be
the first ray of the Sun hitting the dew
drop scattering into these many colors
for another someone it could be the
familiar smell and warmth of gritty chai
and for someone else it could be the
edginess associated with walking one
pinpricks because you’re not sure of
what the beloved has thought about you
in your heart and I had answers that
made me understand why are people
connecting to poetry why is it better
and make them sit down they all nod
their heads away as if they know what
this is they know what they’re feeling
is whereas they might not know each
other you don’t know these poets that I
deal with in Delhi but we all know
Wordsworth and when he writes about
death and he says she lived unknown and
few could know when Lucy sees to me but
she is in her grave and oh the
difference too simple and it still gives
me goosebumps at some level some final
angle or part of it
or when Dylan Thomas comes out and he
will subvert death and he will subvert
all kinds of stoppages or blockage
blockages in in man’s path and he will
tell you do not go gentle into the good
night rage rage against the dying of
light for those who watch interstellar
these verses might be common and isn’t
it amazing that poetry is the spirit
holding together a film that’s based on
experimental futuristic physics which in
poor academic performance and all make
peace with evident life how wonderful is
it when Alexander Pope will sermonize
you and tell you to not look at God for
all answers rather he will tell you know
then thyself ask not got to scan the
proper study of mankind is man or when
my favorite poet al-shahid le would come
out and recite an english wuzzle that
exists in which towards the end he will
subvert God and he will say an ayah hip
I am only escaped to tell the god sobs
in my arms call me Ishmael tonight and
if still any of what I’ve spoken out
hasn’t managed to touch your heart let’s
get closer to our context let’s perhaps
go to gules ours aha
who will take you through a vast terrain
of sensorial experiences and tell you
how many they key here on our kooky
mahiti khushboo hearts eight chuckling
rich takayama contemporary critics also
criticize the poem here are Cokie
Khrushchev tuna how is all of this
happening together but my dear friends
it happens on the terrain that poets
navigate and they undertake a journey
all together so what I’m trying to tell
you here is poetry is beautiful and when
I come back to for its collective what I
explicitly tried to do was not to create
a platform of coils for its collective
is not a club of poets it’s a club of
listener and I am adamant on making it
remain one because I do at some level
also believe that throughout history
more than ever the
is the time in our lives that we need
and we deserve listeners so next time I
don’t know open your heart out just not
the person next to you I am sure he has
stories to tell I’m also sure that with
a little bit of pushing here in there
and just telling him out to Express
he’ll be able to share something with
you which might not sound like poetry
but like I told you when he tries to
convey meanings of intangible experience
and emotions using words what you might
encounter would be something beautifully
relatable to your own lives or else open
a book find some poet who your heart
decides to resonate with switch on those
vessels at night that will give you
solace more than any role conversation
with friends might because time-tested
emotions would have already been
invested in that piece of poetry by some
great child or poet or couple and if
none of this pick up a pen pick up a
paper or pick up your hands and put them
to a typewriter a keeper and try writing
something of your own no one really
judges us as much as we end up judging
ourselves and on that note I’d like to
tell you that poetry is supposed to
corrode it’s also supposed to comfort
poetry is supposed to critique but it’s
also supposed to come
poetry is supposed to create confusion
by putting out in front of you
multitudes of emotions but it is also
supposed to caress you in two gentle
somnolence
on the odd days that you actually need
it so there’s art all around there are
individuals out here I hope that to come
together and marry someday and I hope
you enjoy what I had to share with you
thank you so much
you
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