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Tuesday, February 11 2025
Mangaluru

A job of a poet is to dream, says Ashok Vajpeyi

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Mangalore: Poetry cannot be written, if the hope for change had died, said the renowned poet critic and cultural activist Ashok Vajpeyi here on July 13, while addressing the gathering present at  James and Shobha Mendonca Endowment Lecture on Poetry-2013,organized by Kavita Trust in association with SDM PG Centre for Management Studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite of the fact that it was a very rainy Sunday evening, but this hardly mattered as the auditorium was packed with the enthusiastic crowd which was present to listen to Vajpeyi, as he delivered the various facets of poetry  with a dash of humour.

He spoke about the present gobal scenario, he said “we live in a violent era and are made to belive that we do not have any other alternative. Globalisation can not be avioded and we are forced to accept what is given .However,poetry can not accept this.A job of a poet is to dream,”.

He aslo said ” we have belived that a world can be changed with ideas. Sadly , today people belive that the world can be changed with things and hence are into accumulating them. Today , things  matter to us more than human beings. We do not think but observe  and listen without  applying our minds. This is cutting into our humanity. Language is one  of the  most defining aspect of our humanness. It is born out of the capacity of abstraction. Poetry is one of the ways, where you can return back to your loneliness and ponder on the illuminations of your soul,”.

The world can do without poetry but poetry cannot do without the world. The relationship between the poetry and the world is multi-layered and complex.It is just like a two sides of the coin, however poetry cannot live with out the world. A poet can make cosmic into domestic and vice versa he said.

While commenting on the relation between poetry and the world ,Vajpeyi said that even if the world becomes uniform and predictabel , poetry can still be born again due to a sense of mystery and wonder. Inspite of the progress, there are things that remain unknown and this mystery should remain.

He also pointed out how the languages is under serious threat in the recent days, and regretted how the media is not doing well these days,as it is not using language responsibily and not keeping quality of language.

His lecture was followed by the question answer session. On the occasion, he presented a signed copy of his book to James and Shobha Mendonca. William Pais of Orchid Gallery introduced the poet and Kiran Parmar compered. Melvyn Rodrigues, poet and president of Kavita Trust and others were present.

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