Every year, World Poetry Day is observed on March 21 to promote linguistic diversity via literary expression and give endangered languages more opportunities to be heard. The day was first established by UNESCO during 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999. On this World Poetry Day we caught up with young poet Sonnet Mondal who was recently invited at the 61st Struga Poetry Evenings Festival in Macedonia.
Sonnet joined the league of stalwarts like Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan, K Satchidanandan, Kunwar Narain and Sujata Bhatt who have been invited to the festival in the past. He has also authored five poetry books including his latest book An Afternoon in My Mind which is a poetic account of the author's childhood.
"It is good that today we at least spare a day to dedicate to the most ancient form of literature. The basis for celebrating any special day is to foster a sense of community. When we commemorate days honouring particular artistic genre, we simply reaffirm our shared humanity with everyone who enjoys reading and writing," says Sonnet on the relevance of celebrating World Poetry Day in today's time.
In terms of language, appearance, engagement, and accessibility, poetry has changed significantly. According to Mondal this evolution will continue with time and changing surroundings. While there are more poets than readers, more vibrant avenues to present good poetry have come up across the globe.
"The growing number of poetry festivals around the globe and the dedicated space for poets in literary festivals have revolutionised people’s interest in reading or writing poetry. It has improved, with the exception of some place-based poets' delusional herd mentality," adds the author of Karmic Chanting.
While it is true that some writers still harbour a false desire to rule the world of poetry, this desire is waning with the emergence of new poets who have their own unique diction and style. "Poets should have viewpoints that open up new vistas for exploring life," Sonnet says adding, that poets have developed fresh poetic forms over the course of each passing decade including the introduction of Artificial Intelligence. "Instead of producing poets, AI will instead produce robots that won't even identify themselves as poets. One may use AI to aid in writing, but what responses would that person offer when confronted with memories that are difficult to articulate in simple sentences?," he questions.
When asked how he is reinventing with time, especially with the evolution of digital poetry, he says his poetry is a part of his knowing, "which is backed by the unrelenting desire to research, assess, and decide. Knowing has no limit, thus I feel like I am constantly reinventing myself."
According to Sonnet, digital poetry is very distinct from free verse if it refers to works published as insta-poetry or twitter-poetry. "While good poetry is aggressively promoted in the digital era, this has also led to a blurring of the lines between good and bad poetry. This is related to how well or poorly a youngster is educated," he opines and adds that his travel and interaction with people from different cultures have helped him write better. "I travel to give readings of my poems wherever I am welcomed, and sometimes I travel just to deepen my sense of connection to the planet," says the poet who is also the organiser of Chair Poetry Evenings in Kolkata.
