Indian poetry in English

Indian English Poetry is the oldest form of Indian English Literature. Indian poets writing in English have succeeded to nativize or indianize English in order to reveal typical Indian situations.^[1] Henry Louis Vivian Derozio is considered the first poet in the lineage of Indian English poetry followed by Sri Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt among others. Among the contemporary Indian English Poets, Nar Deo Sharma occupies important place because of his literary achievements.

History

Nissim Ezekiel is considered to be a pioneering figure in modern Indian English Poetry.His first book, A Time to Change, was published in 1952. The significant poets of the post-Derozio and pre-Ezekiel times are Toru Dutt, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore. Some of the notable poets of Ezekiel's time are A. K. Ramanujan, R. Parthasarathy, Gieve Patel, Jayant Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Kamala Das, Keki N. Daruwalla, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Shiv K. Kumar, Arun Kolatkar and Dilip Chitre. Rabindranath Tagore wrote primarily in Bengali and created a small body of work (mainly prose) in English and was responsible for the translations of his own work into English.

Poets

Other notable 20th Century poets of English poetry in India include Eunice De Souza, Gieve Patel, Kersy Katrak, P. Lal among others.The younger generation of poets writing in English are Abhay K, Adil Jussawala, A. J. Thomas, Anand Thakore, Anju Makhija, Anjum Hasan, Hoshang Merchant,Anupama Raju, Madan Gopal Gandhi, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Bibhu Padhi, C. P. Surendran, Desmond L.Kharmawplang, Dileep Jhaveri, E.V. Ramakrishnan, Anuradha Bhattacharyya, Gopi Kottoor, Jaydeep Sarangi, Jeet Thayil, Jerry Pinto, K Srilata, K. V. Dominic, Bibhu Padhi, Kumar Vikram, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Makarand Paranjape, Akhil Katyal, Mani Rao, Meena Kandasamy, Menka Shivdasani, Manohar Shetty, Mustansir Dalvi, Nandini Sahu, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Rachana Joshi, Ranjit Hoskote, Rita Malhotra, Nar Deo Sharma Robin Ngangom, Nitoo Das , Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sridala Swami, Sumana Roy, Sudeep Sen, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Nalini Priyadarshni, Preeth Nambiar, Tapan Kumar Pradhan,Yuyutsu Sharma, Vijay Nambisan, Joshy K J and Vihang A. Naik among others.

Modern expatriate Indian poets writing in English include Meena Alexander, Ravi Shankar, Sidhartha Bose, Shanta Acharya, Sujata Bhatt, Tabish Khair, Vikram Seth, Vijay Seshadri and Yuyutsu Sharma among others.

Anthologies

Notable anthologies of Indian English Poetry include Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets ed. by R. Parthasarathy, Three Indian Poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A K Ramanujan, Dom Moraes ed. by Bruce Alvin King, The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets ed. by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets ed. by Ranjit Hoskote, 60 Indian poets ed. by Jeet Thayil, Harper Collins Anthology of English Poetry ed. by Sudeep Sen, Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry edited by Menka Shivdasani^[2][3] published by Michael Rothenberg in 2004 ; Ten: The New Indian Poets. Edited and Selected by Jayanta Mahapatra & Yuyutsu Sharma. New Delhi/Jaipur: Nirala Publications,^[4] The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India ed. by Vivekanand Jha widely representative of Indian English poets among others.

Awards and Laurels

• Sahitya Akademi Award- Notable winners of this award among Indian poets writing in English are Jayanta Mahapatra, Keki N. Daruwalla, Jeet Thayil, Adil Jussawala among others.^[5]
• SAARC Literary Award- Notable winner of this award among Indian poets writing in English are Jayanta Mahapatra and Abhay K.^[6][7]
• Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize- It was started in 2015 and the first winner of this Prize was Arundhathi Subramaniam
• Muse India-Satish Verma Young Writers Award
• Srinivas Rayparol Poetry Prize-The Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize was instituted by the Hyderabad-based Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust in 2000. The winners include Goirick Brahmachari(2016), Aishwarya Aiyer(2015), Ranjani Maurali(2014), Mihir Vatsa(2013), Tushar Jain (2012), Aditi Rao (2011), Hemant Mohapatra(2010), Aditi Machado(2009)

Journals

• Indian Literature - published by Sahitya Akademi
• The Journal of Poetry Society of India-published by The Poetry Society (India)
• Muse India
• The Indian Quarterly
• The Four Quarters Magazine
• Northeast Review
• Kritya
• Kavya Bharati
• The Little Magazine

See also

• Indian poetry
• Indian English Poetry
• List of English poets from India
• The Poetry Society (India)

References

Books:

1. Chinhade,Sirish.″Five Indian English Poets″. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1996
2. Das, Sisir Kumar .″A History of Indian Literature″(3 volumes). New Delhi. Sahitya Akademi, 2000.
3. Iyengar,KRS. ″Indian Writing in English″. New Delhi. Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 2002.
4. King, Bruce. ″Modern Indian Poetry in English″. New Delhi. Oxford University press, 2004.
5. Mitra, Zinia.″Indian Poetry in English :Critical Essays″. New Delhi, Prentice Hall, 2016
6. Sarangi, Jaydeep. "Exploration in Indian English Poetry". New Delhi, Authorspress, 2007
7. Naik M.K.″A History of Indian English Literature″. New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2004

Sarangi,Jaydeep , "Indian Imagination of Jayanta Mahapatra". New Delhi, Sarup and Sons, 2015

^[1]==External links==

• Five reasons Indian poetry matters more than ever
• Cultural Semiotics Reading of Contemporary Indian Poetry in English
• Contemporary Indian English Poetry
• Chattopadhyay, Subhasis. Vedanta and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Indian Poetry in Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121(9):648-55 (2016). ISSN 0032-6178
• Roy, Pinaki. “Indian English Poetry: A very brief History”. Contemporary Indian Poetry in English. Eds. Sarkar, J., and S. Mondal. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2016 (ISBN 978-93-5207-113-5). Pp. 11-29.

1. ↑ Rath, Akshaya K (2013). "Language Debate and Canonizing Indian English Poetry" (PDF). The Challenge. 22 (2).