Imaging: M. Iqbal Shaikh

“Here lies the man
Who hoped to transform
An apple and a worm
Into metrical verse.”

Frivolously poignant lines, these, potent enough to seize the attention of any self-respecting publisher. At the moment, though, they languish as scribbles, scattered within the confines of a bachelor’s pad in south Delhi. Shamik Chakravarty, their creator, has problems digging them out. “My poetry is esoteric, sometimes bitter,” he laughs. “I don’t know how readers might react to it.”

Nonetheless, Chakravarty harbours dreams of being published one day, so much so that the 25-year-old aspiring poet just quit a well-paying PR job to concentrate on his calling. English poetry in India, contrary to what some argue, isn’t dead. It’s seeking to make a comeback.

Cut to about a decade back to the past. English poetry had then been wallowing in neglect, what with the first generation of home-grown poets — Jayanta Mahapatra, Adil Jussawala, and Nissim Ezekiel, to name a few — having bowed out of the literary scene. Dom Moraes had come and gone. Yet English poetry was never a mass movement. Regional language poetry, on the other hand, had a tradition of its own, a healthy readership, literary magazines and small publishers willing to publish poetry at a low cost. English poetry, not surprisingly, retracted into untimely hibernation.

But of late, a new generation of poets has come of age, though some among them have been in the reckoning for a while. Names such as Anjum Hasan, Ranjit Hoskote, Jeet Thayil, Rukmini Bhaya Nair and Anand Thakur are now tossed around in literary gatherings, and Vikram Seth isn’t the only poet the layman can count off his fingertips.

Jeet Thayil

“Poetry has seen a sort of revival in the past five years,” says Nilanjana S. Roy, chief editor of EastWest and Westland Books. “While it may not make the kind of commercial sense that fiction or non-fiction does, we’ve realised that poetry does cater to a niche group of dedicated readers, and that number is definitely rising.”

Westland published Thayil’s poetry These Errors Are Correct last month. The publishers will soon be out with British Indian poet Daljit Nagra’s debut collection Look We Have Coming to Dover!, a title they describe as “tremendous fun.” “We have made a commitment to publishing the best new talent regardless of genre,” says Roy. “It is not easy to publish poetry as a general rule, but if the best writing in the country is coming from our poets, you can’t say no.”

Other English language publishers, too, are riding the poetry wave. Penguin, which even its competitors admit has a comprehensive poetry backlist that has helped to keep Indian poets in circulation, has been showcasing new Indian English poetry in its ‘First Proof’ series. This year’s edition features poetry from Meghalayan poet Temsula Ao, and Nooreen Sarna, a class XII student of Delhi’s Sanskriti School.

“I have to say it’s a good time to be a poet writing in English, in India,” says Sampurna Chattarji, whose debut collection Sight May Strike You Blind was published by the Sahitya Akademi in 2007 and has already gone into a reprint.

Dedicated literary magazines such as Chandrabhaga and The Little Magazine (TLM) are also regular platforms for quality Indian poetry. “Poetry always had a modest but dedicated readership, and publishers traditionally respected that,” says TLM editor Antara Dev Sen. “But with the media explosion and marketing hype in the 1990s, there was an obsession with maximising profits. So publishers moved away from the modest margins of poetry towards the more market-friendly fiction.”

Nooreen Sarna

For a genre which always lacked a mass following, the decision was like a nail in the coffin. “The Bombay school, for example, was going strong when poetic organisations such as Clearing House were getting quality Indian English poetry published in the Seventies and Eighties,” says Pune-based poet Dilip Chitre. “But once such organisations faded away, few cared to bring poets scattered across India together, to form a unified movement,” he says.

What’s promising, in that context, is that people are now finding new ways of marketing the genre to today’s readers. “Publishers are looking to tap new markets,” says Thayil. “My new collection included a CD containing recitations of the poems. The publishers did something that hadn’t been done before, but they’re business people and they know poetry can be viable business,” he says.

For starters, publishers are taking care to see that they don’t print more than 1,500-2,000 copies per order, compared to 3,000 or more copies for fiction titles. The idea is to subsidise them with an exhaustive backlist of other forms of writing. Cover prices, compared to those of other books, are also kept low. Most books are priced at Rs 150-250, so as to make them attractive to a broader range of readers.

Booksellers, too, are putting in their bit to push poetry on the bookshelves. Divya Kapur, who runs a bookstore called Literati in Goa, is one of many sellers who regularly organises reading sessions. “A turnout of 30 to 40 people per session is considered good, and we often end up selling a few dozen copies through these sessions,” says Kapur.

Poetry fests are being held in Mumbai and elsewhere. A festival of films based on poetry, organised by Sadho, a Delhi group seeking to promote verse, toured Indian cities recently. At the Jaipur literary festival, poets Chattarji, Thayil and Tishani Doshi were invited to read from their works along with a UK beat-box artist, Jason Singh. “The response was amazing. So there’s a buzz — which is great for poetry,” says Chattarji.

Poets have also realised the need to refashion and reinvent their poetry so as to keep it in sync with the current urban psyche. Calcutta-based poet Inam Hussein Mullick, for instance, is experimenting with jazz poetry. “It’s a form where the imagery follows the pattern and rhythms of jazz ,” says the Jadavpur University post graduate student.

Chattarji’s poetry deals with the “surreal nature” of living in Mumbai, the “small violences” of daily life and even the “mystery of prime numbers.” Sarna, on the other hand, is more into exploring human relations, often through conversations. “My poems are based on simple themes which are universal,” says the daughter of Indian diplomat-author Navtej Sarna.

Given all these developments, many hope that the future will see the efforts help build up a concrete tradition of English poetry. However, some are very optimistic. A few, like poet Jerry Pinto, wonder how long publishers’ interests will hold out. “While there are those who will publish poetry almost as an act of faith, I have never seen any sign of encouragement. When was the last time you heard of a huge advance paid for a poetry book,” he asks.

That is perhaps why talented young minds like Sarna are not taking any chances, especially when it comes to earning a living from poetry. “I’d want to study law, and become a lawyer-poet, maybe,” she laughs.

Poets are looking at other genres, too — Chattarji’s first novel is being published by HarperCollins and Thayil too has been working on a novel, besides giving shape to a libretto. “It’s all writing. I really don’t see much of a difference,” he reasons. If only the market agreed.