Panel explores writing without inhibitions

  • | Thursday | 21st September, 2017

She was chairing a panel discussion on ‘Women’s poetry in South India’ as part of the ‘Dakshina’ South Indian Poetry Festival organised by the Ayyappa Panicker Foundation here on Wednesday. We are not writing apologetically, having shed the inhibitions of body, intellect, caste, and the patriarchal society,” she said. Tamil poet Salma said that there was more than 2,000 years of tradition of women’s writings in Tamil, but there was a difference in how men’s writings and women’s writings are accepted. Women poets have come a long way now and have learned to separate our personal selves from our writings. She said that there is brilliant women poetry coming out from all the four major South Indian languages.

more-in Contemporary women writers have broken free from the shackles that have held them back and are now writing unapologetically, Kannada poet Prathibha Nandakumar said. She was chairing a panel discussion on ‘Women’s poetry in South India’ as part of the ‘Dakshina’ South Indian Poetry Festival organised by the Ayyappa Panicker Foundation here on Wednesday. “I don’t think women today are too worried about what men will say about their writings. There was a time when a poet was asked about her health after she wrote a poem on abortion. There were also the social constraints that were creating pressures on her while writing. Women poets have come a long way now and have learned to separate our personal selves from our writings. We are not writing apologetically, having shed the inhibitions of body, intellect, caste, and the patriarchal society,” she said. She said that there is brilliant women poetry coming out from all the four major South Indian languages. “These poems in different languages, it seems, are talking to each other. With the information revolution, we all know what each other are writing. When we read each others’ poems, we get inspired to pull our standards up and be on a par with each other. The younger generation has better platforms,” she said. Poet Anitha Thampi said that viewing and the reading of poetry has always been mediated through the male view, a situation which is slowly shifting now. “For most parts of history, the male has been the reader and the critic. The whole discourse happens in this framework of the male territory. Over time, there has been a shift in this male understanding, reading, and criticism of poetry. This shift is but from explicit exclusions to deceptive and naive inclusions. For example, how women poets are sometimes invited to literary discussions just for the sake of balance, to include a woman. Thus, it ends up being a dishonest activity in practice,” she said. Tamil poet Salma said that there was more than 2,000 years of tradition of women’s writings in Tamil, but there was a difference in how men’s writings and women’s writings are accepted. “For long, women have been treated just as objects in men’s writings. But when the women started using this same body as a weapon in their writings, there was opposition. When a woman does it, many could not accept that kind of confidence,” she said. Tamil Poet Kutti Revathi said it was time for women poets to think upon how the language of poetry can be used to move society forward, to be used against the oppression and violence inflicted upon women. Telugu poet Mandarapu Hymavathy talked about the suppression of women poets from the time of Puranas.

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