HYDERABAD: It was an evening of lucid poetry, thought-provoking conversation and interesting workshops. It was the fifth edition of Writers Carnival organised by Nivasini Publishers. The event was held at Saptaparni, Banjara Hills. The literary event featured a conversation of poet Rochelle Potkar with poet-journalist Saima Afreen on the former’s poetry book ‘Four Degrees of Separation’.
While replying to one of the questions on Mumbai and her hometown Kalyan, Rochelle said, “Topographies are liquid. You pass through them and they pass through you. In this process, what you gather shapes up your work. And most of it is done on a sub-conscious level. Even when I have come back from University of Iowa after my writer-in-residency programme I still feel I am in that place. The effect of the places stays with you occupying a portion of your mind.”
The next session was followed by three different workshops of 30 minutes each on ‘editing fiction’, ‘writing haibun’ and ‘literature and journalism’. The audience happily took part in the workshops participating in the exercises given by the facilitators. As part of the haibun workshop organised by poet Akila G, attendees responded enthusiastically coming up with a variety of images. After the workshops, an anthology of poems named ‘Lakdi-Ka-Pul: the poetry bridge’ was launched.
The best part of the evening post the conversation with Rochelle Potkar came when budding poets came to the dais to recite their poems in their mother tongues. The poems recited were not just in Telugu but also in distinct languages like Malyalam, Hindi, Urdu, and even Maithili.
Subha N Nivedita founder of Nivasini Publishers said, “We want our sessions to be interactive so that the attendees can blend well with the poets and writers invited to speak and conduct workshop. We’ll have more interesting events in the next edition of Writers Carnival.”