Poetry collective hosts virtual open mics, poetry slams, marathons
In January 2020, three students Poornima Mohan, Joel Sebastian and Vidya Rajagopalan met at an open mic poetry event in the city. The trio wanted to have more such open mic poetry events and started a poetry collective called Project Prodets. “We wanted more people from the city to experience poetry as an open mic event. In India, poetry is not much loved and respected as other art forms. Our objective is to provide the same space for poetry as other art forms. Before the lockdown, we had organised three open mics and a few other activities. But now, we are doing all our events virtually. We have 150 members in our WhatsApp group and all are very much excited about our virtual events. We have done a virtual slam poetry contest called Proslam. In this two-day event, many poets from across the country participated. This virtual event was judged by Foram Ashish Shah, co-founder of Spill Poetry and Husain Rasheed, the founder of Dark Room Poets, which focuses on art education in India,” says Poornima Mohan.
The youngster points out that the best part of events going virtual is that people around the globe are able to participate. “We have regular virtual open mics, poetry games and poetry marathons. We wanted to keep up the spirit of writing poems. Once things are back to normal, we are planning to restart physical events. It is an amazing feeling when people bond over poetry because poetry is all about emotions and being yourself,” she concludes.