A poet’s meet in Kochi looks at the way ahead for modern Malayalam poetry

Emerging Poetry, comprising a group of modern Malayalam poets, announced at their second meeting in Kochi, the launch of their website, emergingpoetry.com, and discussed the need for better translations and other outreach measures

People said to the tanks, We are leaving westward

People said to the snowfall, We are going far away..

People said to the trees by the road side

We are going nowhere. Nobody asks them if you come back?

S. Joseph, on Russo- Ukraine War, 2022, translated from Malayalam

“Why does modern Malayalam poetry lack global outreach? Why is it confined to a niche local audience?” asks S. Joseph, who founded Emerging Poetry in June this year, with poets Kalathara Gopan and Babu Sacaria. The idea was to have a platform for modern Malayalam poetry. Dismayed by the futility of war in modern times, Joseph wrote the above anti-war poem in Malayalam and translated it into English.

Earlier this month, at the group’s second meeting in Kochi, Joseph, former HOD of Malayalam at Maharaja’s College, announced the establishment of a website (emergingpoetry.com). “Modern poetry in Kerala survives in splintered subsets like Women, Dalit, Eco poetry, gay writings and such. Emerging Poetry is an umbrella that seeks all poets in its shade.”