The Problem with Poetry in India

Yesterday the lovely poetess Linda Ashok set up a fantastic event for us to talk about rivers and about poetry, and she invited the celebrated activist Medha Patkar to introduce our project and Ping's book, Ten Thousand Waves.

Of course the event was just fantastic, but I've been very sad to learn about the state of poetry in India, and this is a great opportunity to explain it, and then you can all see what a truly wonderful thing Linda Ashok is trying to do with her support of Indian poets.

I learned most of this stuff the night before when I was asking Linda about RedLeaf poetry. Right now, she's working morning, noon, and night organizing the 2014 RedLeaf poetry prize, (one of the judges of which will be our own Wang Ping!) which is a tremendous amount of stress, considering that she has been working full-time jobs from call centers, to sales, to bank loan advising for the past seven years to support both her family and RedLeaf Poetry, which does not draw a profit.

That's because in it's current state, almost all Indian poetry is produced at a financial loss, for the most part at the poets expense. In a population of 1.2 billion, a poet is lucky if 75 people buy her book in a year. Naturally, no Indian publisher will publish poetry. Thereby, with only a couple of exceptions, all books of poetry in India are self-published.

At the event last night, when Linda stood up in front of a room full of people and announced that it was her dream to bring Indian poetry to the forefront of mainstream Indian culture, the crowd responded furiously. Some people told Linda that poetry has always been in the forefront of Indian mainstream culture, but how can this be if Indians won't buy a single book? This is a country with one of the richest poetic traditions in the world, and it's a shame to see. After the event, Linda announced that a few copies of Ping's book were available, and not only would nobody buy it, but some were offended that it wasn't being given to them for free.

But before anyone loses hope here, lemme show you just how incredible Linda Ashok is. If you talked to me at all at any point during my process of trying to get a visa to come on this trip, you might have an understanding of how impossibly bureaucratic India can be. Thereby, it wasn't entirely surprising to me that we couldn't confirm the event with the Indian International Center until a day and a half before the event itself. 

Yet, Linda was able to organize an event that packed the room full of people who all came to a poetry event with less than two days notice on a Monday afternoon. Linda Ashok's dedication to Indian poetry just blows my mind, and it's this kind of dedication that makes me think yes! She can really do it!

If you get a chance, you should take a look at what RedLeaf's poetry does. Here's their website: http://rlpoetry.org/ Check it out! And keep on checking, because I really think she's going to do some amazing things.

Okay, here's photos:

Setting up the flags

Ping and Medha Patkar!

 This flagmaker has excellent handwriting.

Everyone liked the food.

This guy had the same hair as me!

Here's River Poet Christopher Staudinger!

We kept on passing this huge orange statue of Hanuman with faces in between its legs, on it's chest (head too), etc. Every time I only caught his legs!

See you! Next time more pictures, and less text