‘The main thing is to foster dialogue’
The Poetrywala Foundation aspires to support poets and deepen the links between poetry and its readers
1 What is the origin of the idea behind the newly-formed Poetrywala Foundation?
Poetry publishing in India is a non-profit activity. It is a movement. That is the perspective with which I and Smruti became publishers. In 2001, we started publishing poetry in Marathi. We expanded to publishing poetry in translation, for which we started the imprint, Poetrywala (2003). Through it, we also began to publish poetry in English. The books we publish are important. And we embrace various kinds of poetry, not just the kind that we are used to writing. Poetrywala, which we have funded ourselves, is now on auto-pilot. This means that book sales fund new releases. But much more can be done. This realisation led us to create the foundation.
2 Does the foundation plan to address the way poetry is taught in India?
The school curriculum teaches poetry in such a way as to turn people away from it! The flowers in 200-year-old poems are not found here, nor the animals. Most of the poems taught are by non-Indians. The syllabus has not changed much for many years. When will new Indian poets enter the textbooks? When will our children also know more about Indian poetry and poets? We will engage in advocacy to change the poetry curriculums here.
3 The foundation intends to organise litfests in India and abroad. Litfests are expensive. Will you take on sponsors, and to what extent will they control the litfests’ themes?
We are not going to do big litfests, with big money and big sponsors. We will do focused and small festivals. We will curate them well. Ten poets from India and 10 poets from abroad, for instance, maybe fewer, in a roundtable and readings for two or three days. People will donate the venue space and food. The main thing is to foster interaction and dialogue.
4 Besides you and Smruti Divate, the other co-founder, who are the other people driving the foundation?
There are Sampurna Chattarji, Mustansir Dalvi, Subhro Bandopadhyay, Ranjit Hoskote, Sachin Ketkar, Sanjeev Khandekar and Manya Joshi at the core. The Poetrywala poets too are an important part of this foundation. They will take part in varying capacities. But we are open to ideas from anywhere.
5 What role does the foundation aspire to?
To deepen the links between poetry and readers.
6 How will the foundation finance its work?
We are looking at both crowdfunding and corporate donations. Since we are a public foundation, everything will be audited and transparent.
7 What’s coming up first?
We will launch our website and a little magazine shortly.