Hyderabad: It is not often that Indian poets receive international honours. The first one to be recognised worldwide for his poetic excellence (in Sanskrit) may have been Kalidasa while the first Indian to get the Nobel Prize in Literature was the incomparable Rabindranath Tagore who was, essentially and first of all, a poet. It is heartening news then that the Indian poet Vijay Seshadri has been awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2014.
While many Indian writers have been acclaimed in the world of literature and honoured with prestigious prizes, like the Booker, very few poets since Tagore have been considered worthy of such an honour although five Indians have been awarded the Pulitzer previously in fields like science and journalism.
Vijay Seshadri has been lauded by the New Yorker for “his expert assimilation of American poetry from Frost to Lowell, Bishop, and Ashbery, their tutelary spirits resplendently alive in a tradition he himself is significantly shaping with his own alchemical brand of poetic magic”. The poems of the Bengaluru-born, America-raised Seshadri have regularly been featured in many magazines and particularly recommended — besides his Pulitzer-winning 3 Sections, a new collection, — are The Disappearances and the title poem of his second collection, The Long Meadow.
The poet himself modestly attributes his success to his father, who fulfilled the immigrant dream of doing his doctorate in the US and making his life and career there.
Thanks to the recognition, there will be many more readers of Seshadri’s poetry in India, which has always prided itself on people who have gone beyond its shores and distinguished themselves.
