City poetry festivals to bring varied global voices together

BENGALURU: Starting Thursday, Bengaluru will host the four-day

Glass House Poetry Festival

. Organised by Art Mantram, it brings together some of the world’s best loved poets.

The online event has been curated by Yumna Hari Singh along with Rochelle Potkar, Prateeti Punja Balal,

Somrita Urni Ganguly

, Aditi Angiras and Chandramohan S. Noted Kannada litterateur Chandrashekhara Kambara will give the keynote address on Thursday.

Yumna says, “We have two sessions on

black poetry

: African American Poetry features Black Arts Movement leader Sonia Sanchez with black rights activist and professor John H Bracey, and Black (AF) features award-winning young voices from the community. The session Wounded Republic will see Dalit poets MB Manoj, Ramesh Karthick Nayak and Yazhan Athi. Also scheduled is a reading of John Keats on account of his bicentenary by Keats’ scholar and professor Nicholas Roe.”

Eminent British poet Ruth Padel will conduct a session on Beethoven Variations with pianist Karl Lutchmeyer. “The festival has a mix of live sessions and recordings, so our main job will be to shepherd our virtual audiences to the different sessions through the day,” says Yumna. Registration is free and live sessions can be viewed on the website, artmantram.org.

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