POETRY: THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CIVILIZATION

Let me write about the new blog Bodhi Trust has started recently. Its address is:

http://kavyodyoga.blogspot.com

This blog is an archive for  Indian poetry in English translations. Bodhi Trust wants to make it as comprehensive as possible by including as many good Indian poems in English translations as possible. We want to publish the poems already published in print-from, and the new ones. We also want to identify new good poems, have them translated into English, and publish them. For this, we need the help of our readers and fellow-poets.

These are the problems we face:

1. Getting copies of the poems already available in print-form is a difficult task. Many books are out of print; many are published by the small-publishers or authors themselves, and are not properly distributed. Readers can help us by emailing those poems to Bodhi Trust. We will also be grateful to writers if  they email  their poems to us.--both already published and the new ones.

2. If we have come across poems in printed versions, it is becoming difficult to obtain permission from the copyright holders. Quite often their addresses are not available, or, proverbially, Indian writers do not reply to the letters. We make every attempt to trace the copyright holders and get their permission.  If we fail in spite of our best efforts, we will act depending on the individual cases. For example, in spite of all the efforts, we have failed to locate the copyright holder of some of the English translations of Muktibodh`s poetry. Bodhi Trust sincerely feels it is better to publish Muktibodh`s poems in its blog and make them available to poetry-lovers rather than leave out his great poetry altogether.

3. Readers can respond to these poems by sending comments, critics and theoreticians by discussing individual poems and poetry in general.

4. Poetry is the subtlest use of language. And, Bodhi Trust believes that the very foundation of human civilization is language--not engines, not houses, not clothes, not aeroplanes, not money--but the language which preserves memory and passes it on to another person or another generation or another culture.Therefore, poetry is one of the very important things of a civilization. Any attempt to make this develop and flourish has the support of Bodhi Trust.

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Bodhi Trust accepts donations. Money can be remitted to Bodhi Trust, SB Account no.1600101008058, Canara Bank, Yenmur 574328, Dakshina Kannada District, Karnataka, IFSC CNRB0001600.

Bodhi Trust publications can be bought by remitting the price of the books directly to the above account and informing us of your address. Email address of Bodhi trust is: bodhitrustk@gmail.com

These are some of our publications:


1.Hamlet: Kannada translation of Shakespeare`s Hamlet. Rs50.00

2. Muccu mattu itara lekhnagalu. Essays on Mahabharata, clowns in Yakshagana, Shivarama Karanth`s novels, colonization etc.Rs60.00

3. Mataduva mara: collected poems, 1964-2003.Rs100.00

4. Samagra natakagalu vol.2. Rs60.00

5. Samagra natakagalu vol.3 Rs75.00

All these are by me--that is, Ramachandra Deva.