BENGALURU: Bengaluru Poetry Festival, which is all set to kick off next month, will be an interesting mix of poetry and music. The eagerly awaited festival will include performances, translations, poetry writing workshops, interactive sessions, discussion about opportunities and workshops for children and adults.
“This festival is for those who read, write, and breathe poetry. Poets and musicians expected to perform at the event are Javed Akhtar, Kannada poets Mamta Sagar and Jayant Kaikini, Varun Gandhi, Vikram Sampath, Arundhati Subramanian, Piyush Mishra, Vasundhara Das and many more,” said Shinie Antony, Festival director.
On the first day, there are workshops scheduled for children to explore poetry through history, art and national heritage. Well known personalities like music manager Simon Napier-Bell, Hindi poet Sudheer Ranjan Singh will be conducting sessions. A session on editing and publishing will also be conducted by Harper Collins Publishers and Penguin Random House India.
“Poetry does not have too many forums or platforms of its own. The thought behind this, was to start a festival dedicated only to poetry. This festival breaks the convention of having a performer and an audience. We have partnered with a number of Bengaluru-based poetry groups, to create a sense of community outreach,” said Subodh Sankar, co-founder of Atta Galatta. Poets from groups like Airplane Poetry Movement, Ink Weaver and others will be performing at the event. Each day’s programmes will be book-ended by artistic performances. A poetry contest is also being conducted by the publishing house, Raindrops Company. Selected poems will be compiled into Po’try- Bengaluru Poetry Festival 2016 Anthology and released at the festival.
What: Bengaluru Poetry Festival
Where: The Leela Palace, Old Airport Road
When: August 6, 7
