The Indian Poets Society

Looking at The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, the first adjective that comes to mind is ‘massive’. The anthology features 94 poets, including some who have hardly been published before and others who have largely been forgotten. Walking us through his process of selection, editor Jeet Thayil says one of his main concerns “was to give newer voices a chance to be heard”. . Q This is being hailed as a definitive anthology of Indian poetry in English. How does it differ from earlier collections, particularly ones you have edited? Inclusivity. Breadth. Informed guesswork regarding the future. There are poets from all over the world, which entails a broader vision of Indian poetry than previous anthologies. And there are essays and photographs that place writers into context. I began work on the first version of this book in 2003, for Fulcrum Number Four, which included the work of 53 Indian poets. There were two further iterations before The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, which makes it the culmination of a 20-year project. I thought incessantly about those poets whose work would continue to be vital in the decades to come.

Q. With boundaries and borders now blurrier than ever before, what was your scope in terms of defining an ‘Indian’ poet?

As broad as possible. There are poets in this book who left India at a very young age, for instance Vijay Seshadri, who went to the United States at the age of five. There are poets who never lived in India for a substantial period of time, for instance Monica Ferrell and Prageeta Sharma, and there are poets who never left India, for instance Gopal Honnalgere and Vijay Nambisan. But as you read them, one after the other, you will find a unity of sensibility and history. For me, that faint unity is a definition of Indianness.

Q. What did your research entail? How did you come up with the list? Also, did you have any gender/ number/ region criteria?

I went to a number of public and private libraries in various cities over two decades, including the British Library, the India International Centre in Delhi, Adil Jussawalla’s archives at his home in Cuffe Parade, and my own extensive poetry shelves. I scoured the Internet. Many of the poets were suggested by Adil, whose knowledge of Indian poetry is unequalled. For the rest, I was guided by poems, not poets. And I knew fairly early on that the book would include more women than men, because some of the more interesting work at the moment is being created by women.

Q. How long did it take you to put together the anthology? What was your favourite part about working on it?

It took about two years in all, with a final, sustained effort of about three months. My favourite part? That’s easy. Finishing the thing. ■