Over 50 artistes at poetry festival this weekend

The seventh edition of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival by Atta Galatta will be held on August 5 and 6 at Grand Mercure at a mall on Old Madras Road.

The event will focus on the connections between poetry and music, and provide an opportunity to learn through workshops and interactive sessions. Over 50 poets, artistes and musicians from all over the world will participate this year. The festival will also bring poetry in multiple languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali.

The first day will begin with a session by bansuri legend Hariprasad Chaurasiya, followed by interactions with celebrated artistes such as Mita Vashisht, Jerry Pinto, Tanuja Chaturvedi, and Shubha Mudgal. On the following day, veterans like Javed Akhtar and Padmavathi Rao, and budding artistes like Aman Akshar and Maria Goretti will talk about their journey in poetry.

‘When poets turn editors’ by Prerna Gill and Sohini Basak, ‘Folk songs of north Karnataka, embodying folk through prose’ by Shilpa Mudbi, and ‘Let’s talk lullabies’ by Gurupriya Athreya and Vedant Bharadwaj are among other interesting sessions spread over two days.

Subodh Sankar, co-founder of Atta Galatta, says, “This edition will help one understand how poetry is a powerful evocative art form and (how it) tells a story using strong imagery.”

Kids’ corner
This year, a children’s festival will run in parallel with the main poetry festival. It will include a poetry performance and activities like storytelling, puppetry, and miming. Entry is free for all.

Visit bengalurupoetryfestival.org