“In 2015, taking forward the idea of poetry presentation, Anshuman, Dibyaswarupa, Adyasha, Padma, Ananta, Sourav and Nikila started as a Facebook chat group only. Finally, the group met, and came into existence ‘Bhubaneswar Poetry Slam’, later being changed to ‘Bhubaneswar Poetry Club’.
We began as a group of enthusiasts who believed in presenting poems outside the context of books and wanted to nourish the culture of spoken word poetry. Why be a poet or performer, when you can be both! Eventually people started joining us and we grew as a community into a club, as known today.
We have been operational for 6 years now. We started an event, ‘Ars Poetica’, which has no linguistic or other restrictions to the form of poetry, and have had 17 editions of it. We conduct ‘Parenthesis’, in which we conduct a workshop on slam poetry, followed by a competition and also a lot of other events, like ‘Ekphrasis’, and ‘Canopy’.
In 2018, we had the opportunity to conduct ‘Human Library. We are the first ones in Odisha with license from the original Human Library Forum in Denmark. The event was a huge success, and we are looking forward to organizing more of it. We have had 2 sessions of ‘Jingle Spells’, which is another huge event. In the 1st edition, we wrote poems, printed them, and hid them in the books of libraries and cafes. The 2nd edition was a culmination of art forms, where we celebrated poetry, music, and had local artists showcase their talents.
We have had our share in the Kalinga Literary Festival. We have been called to judge events in IIT KGP, AIIMS and others. We do events in different cafes in town. While some let us do them for free, some demand a minimum billing to be generated from the gathering. We are also planning to conduct a large-scale poetry festival, pairing up with places to share mutual benefits. During the lockdown, we pulled off a series of online events, which went by the name ‘Rete Poetica’.
We also send out email newsletters, called ‘Love and Light’, trying to share joy through our efforts. We are completely community driven and each one who has attended our events is a part of us and has enriched us.” – Bhubaneswar Poetry Club
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