Matwaala
Matwaala,
a South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival
will be held at Casa De Luz, Austin, Texas on August 2, 2015, Sunday, 9am-8 pm.
Co-hosted
by the Poetry Caravan and Austin Poets International, the festival is the first
project of the collective. The
Dialogue Institute’s reception, dinner and reading for the poets is slated for
August 1, Saturday 6 p.m. Other events will flag off the poets presence in
Austin on the morning of August 1st as well.
Matwaala’s
first venture is a poetry festival that will be held on Sunday, August 2, 2015, at Casa De Luz from
9am-8 p.m. The guest of honor is the eminent 78 year old Parsi poet Keki Daruwalla of New Delhi and noted
poets from the US and possibly Canada will be attending. Keki Daruwalla is
considered to be one of India’s leading poets and
lives in Delhi. He has over ten volumes of poetry and half that number in short
stories. His Collected Poems were published in 2006 by Penguin India. He won
the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Asia in 1987 for his book
"Landscapes". His novel "For Pepper and Christ"--a
historical novel—was
shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize (Asia and UK) in 2010. His latest books
(2014) are Fire Altar: Poems on the Persians and the Greeks" and a short
story volume entitled "Islands". Another Novel on the Parsees is
slotted for publication this year. Daruwalla was a Queen Elizabeth Fellow at
Oxford for a year. He is also a former Indian Police Service
officer, who retired as Additional Director in
the Research and Analysis Wing
(RAW).He was
also special Assistant to the Prime Minister in 1979. He retired as Chairman
JIC. Recently he was a Member of the National Commission for Minorities.
Noted US poets attending are Pramila
Venkateswaran, poet laurate of Suffolk county, NY; Saleem Peeradina, Michigan
and others including local youth and adult poets to be confirmed soon. Festival
director Usha Akella’s mission in organizing the collective and festival is to
bring visibility to the expanding and prolific Diaspora South Asian Poets in
the country. The idea of a sole poetry festival emerged after a recent
editorial project she co-edited with Pramila Venkateswaran for www.museindia.com. The issue focused
on a project involving Diaspora artists and poets that generated the idea for
sustained collaboration and initiatives. She states: “Matwaala, South Asian
Diaspora Poets Collective, is a community of poets whose origins go back to
South Asia. Our aim to promote South Asian poetry and collaborate with other
arts in North America. The mission of our initiative is to encourage
solidarity, promote members’ work, and increase awareness of South Asian poetry
in the mainstream American Literary landscape.” A group of poets, Saleem
Peeradina, Pramila Venkateswaran, Amritjit Singh and Usha Akella form the core
team of Matwaala.
Poetry readings, a youth reading, panels and papers will be
featured. The evening ends with a reception and a cultural segment. A detailed
program will be available closer to the festival.
On
commenting on the collective identity, poet and scholar Dr. Amritjit Singh, defines
Matwaala as: The name Matwaala
evokes bonding and bonhomie, fun and funk, creative adventure and freedom,
artistic assertiveness and non-conformity. A Hindi/Urdu word, it was the name
of a radical literary magazine edited by the poet Nirala from Kolkata a century
ago. Matwaala is used for someone
who is drunk, but the word is used more often in a transferred sense, for
someone who is a free spirit. As poets we are, of course, drunk on
language and words.
For more information, and to have your kid participate email poetrycaravanaustin@gmail.com or call
914.686.4487
