I have had friends who like poems and those who don’t. Even among those who like poems I have seen who can go much deep into it and understand it. Not just understand it but also explain and speak about it in such captivating ways.

I had nothing to do with poems till I started college, which was the time when I really started reading poems and reciting it. I will not claim to be a good at it. From then on I have had poems as part of me. I started penning something during the start of 2000s and continued.

While my foray into the world of poems was through Malayalam, my writing started with English. My blog is the place where my poems live. There are two collections of them on Amazon as well. Both in English.

Later I moved into translating the poems of famous people into Malayalam. I guess I decided that because I did not consider my Malayalam poems to be that good, except for a few that I liked. Also translation gave me a chance to read and try to understand a range of poems. Over years I have celebrated poetry months with so much love, made friends and read on open mics and in a lot of ways it has made my world better.

That has been my association with poetry so far but what it did to me is in a way transformational. It made me understand complexity and simplicity intertwined in the same sentence. It took me places even the ones that only existed in the mind of other poets. It made me imagine what is possible. It told me that everyone understands this world differently but we can find a common thread that binds us.

Once a friend asked me what money I make of poetry and I figured you should never try to explain poetry to everyone. Some people never get it.

Categories: Poets and Poems, Writing Project

Tags: National Poetry Month, Poetry, Poetry Project