Back to poetry, 69 years after
Padma Shri Yogesh Praveen released the poetry collection ‘Prem Payodhi’ by Yogendra Nath Dwivedi in the state capital, recently. Currently in his 80s, Dwivedi has penned most of the poems after he retired from the bank. The book consists of 53 poems.
Dastango Himanshu Bajpai, during a conversation with Dwivedi, talked about his poetic journey. The poet revealed that the title of the book was given by Yogesh Praveen.
Remembering his journey, Dwivedi said that when he was a student of intermediate, he happened to recite poetry during
a Kavi Sammelan in Etawah and was applauded by late Gopal Das Neeraj who was present at the event.
After the function, his brother-in-law,
who was also his guardian, termed his poetry interest as harmful for his career and tore the paper on which he had written the poem. And then he was sent to Allahabad University to become an IAS, where he got the company of poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Mahadevi Verma and Ramkumar Varma.
“I stayed away from poetry for 69 long years. After retirement, my wife (late Shailaja) and son Nilesh inspired me to write again,” he said.
Nilesh Dwivedi, who is also a banker, said, “This will surely send a message to the society that even after retirement, you can keep yourself creatively active, you can become an inspiration to the society.”
Poets Dr Suresh, Gopal Chaturvedi, Pawan, Manish Shukla and Abhishek were also present during the book release. Yogesh Praveen said that he had read the poems and feel that they are penned with all heart.