A group photo taken in the Seminar.
Prologue
Yes, I mean a great day I had “AMIDST THE AMBASSADORS OF PEACE”-lovely poets and members of the scholarly CHENNAI POETS’ CIRCLE in their ANNUAL SEMINAR on English Poetry in India and the release of EFFLORESCENCE 2016-An Anthology of Poetry at the World University Service Center in Chennai on Sunday the 29th January.
It all to me and Nivetha started with an email communication of December 5th, 2016 from Ms.Hema Ravi soliciting poems to the forthcoming Anthology EFFLORESCENCE. I had in my stock “DANCE OF WIND” but poor Nivetha sat right earnest on her return from the school and created her “SISTER OH, SISTER”. She was indeed delighted that her poem was accepted for the Anthology and our wait for the day 29th January 2017 started! And then the day dawned to be ‘AMIDST AMBASSADORS OF PEACE.’
PAST RECOLLECTED
A few years ago, I was a part of Chennai Poets’ Circle and due to several personal reasons, I could not attend and I was delighted to meet my old friends after I long time in the Seminar. My mind went back to the days of our contacts with Poet Dr. Srinivasa Rangaswamy an active member of the CPC who is no more and Dr. Krishna Srinivas of the POET who was Bhishma Pithamaha for many, many poets –seniors and in the making. His more than half a decade poetic journal “POET” inspired me to launch my “YOUNG POET” as a millennium gift to the young poets –by definition less than 25 years of age-. It was in the year 2000 and now it is 2017 and gets published as an e-zine!
I was particularly happy to meet respected Poet Madam Padmaja Aiyengar who created a history in November 2016 by wonderfully organizing an INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL POETS’ MEET in Vijayawada and releasing the India Book of Records recognized Anthology AMARAVATI PRISM with 527 poems in 53 languages ! I could also meet a few of the poets who attended that Meet on November 13th and 14th. Mrs.Hema Ravi told me earlier that Madam Padmaja Aiyengar was indeed an inspiration to them!
SEMINAR STARTS
Well, a good number of poets assembled in the hall on time with Invocation followed by a nice Welcome address by Dr. M Thirumeni, Chairman of the CPC- who retired as the HOD and the Principal of Rajah Serfoji College, Thanjavur. His short and sweet address brought certain points for deliberations later based on the discussions in a convention in Nagpur recently.
CPC President Dr. S. Kannan in his presidential address after introducing the Chief Guests gave a clue on the matters to crop up in the Seminar.
Then came the Chief Guest’ address delivered by the sweet voiced Dr. T. Sriraman, formerly Professor of the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He discussed a wide spectrum of English language, evolution of Poetry etc. I enjoyed his words “I am not a poet but I taught poetry”! Some of the points he described in an interesting way to the ordinary listeners like me: Defamiliarization, Stylistics, Language-standard and poetic, Foregrounding as a dominant literary device, Deviant syntax, Deviant Collocation- quoting examples from John Milton, John Dryden, Kamala das, K. Pankajam, Dilip Mohapatra and others.
His explanation for “Literary language is an aesthetically purposeful distortion of standard language” indeed was quite interesting.
“Style as an exploitation of all the resources of the language” was very informative.
He also dealt with a few other literary points that were well received.
Dr. K. Ganesh, HOD, Department of English, Madras Christian College in his resounding, scintillating voice gave the history of the evolution of English poetry at the global and our national level.
After release of the anthology “EFFLORESCENCE 2016” by Dr. Sriraman, a few other books were released.
EFFLORESCENCE 2016 is a very qualitative anthology of English poems-with beautiful lay out and a good quality of printing comprising 97 poems by 57 poets from different parts of India.
Joint Secretary Mr. Jayaram Seshadri presented the Annual Report.
The CD of Nursery Poems by Mrs. Hema Ravi was also released.
With a pleasant Vote of Thanks by Treasurer B. Jayaraman, the first session came to a glorious end.
POETRY READING SESSION I
After tea, Second Session started. It was the reading of poems coordinated by Dr. S. Radhamani, Vice-President of the CPC. First to present the poem was the youngest poet delegate- as rightly described by Ms. Hema Ravi- STAR of THE MEET 17 year old 12th standard student of local Velammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School Miss. S. Nivetha, who presented her poem titled SISTER OH, SISTER which was well received and appreciated by other poet delegates from Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Kerala.
PRESENTATION OF PAPERS
After lunch, there was the next session on the presentation of papers by Prof. Rasupathy, Central University, Prof. Sharmila of Loyolo College, Pushpalatha of Presidency College, Dr. Padma Priya from Karnataka under the Chairpersonship of Dr. Reddy.
Dr. Reddy fondly remembered the Bishma Pithamaha Dr. Krishna Srinivas who edited the monthly poetic journal POET for more than five decades. He was responsible to bring out the poetic talents of the young and old all over the globe as the Editor of Poet and the Anthologies, Founder President of World Poetry Society Intercontinental and the Co founder of the World Congress of poets.
POETRY READING SESSION II
After the papers were presented on the evolution of Poetry- as Indian Writing English- English Indian poetry, second session of poetry reading started under the coordination of the Poet Shri RM Shanmugam Chettiar.
The poets in alphabetical order of names presented their creations in an attractive manner.
After vote of thanks and National Anthem, the Seminar came to a grand finale.
Yes, it was indeed a great day in the midst of Ambassadors of Peace-viz poets from the East and west, north and South of my Motherland India that is Bharath.
EPILOGUE
In this story, I have tried to present a fair picture of the proceedings of the CPC Annual Seminar and Release of EFFLORESCENCE 2016 on my own that is unasked and unsolicited by any. Quite possible that due to age, I might have failed to present a more clear and comprehensive report of the Seminar that will remain ever green in the minds of the poet delegates and others who had the fortune of attending!
A GREAT GESTURE
A personal point: as I have already referred to earlier, I was an active member of the CPC till a few years ago. I hope I will continue that association now on wards.
I must thank Shri B. Jayaraman, the Treasurer of the CPC who expecting my presence brought and handed over to my great delight and surprise two of the photographs taken quite a few years ago – one my presentation of poem in a similar Meet organized and the other one when I offered a shawl to Dr. Krishna Srinivas.
Subbaraman offering a shawl to Dr. Krishna Srinivas..
Envius Thoughts 
Your experience amidst ambassador s of peace is well described .Your association with CPC ,the Offshoot of young poet, The day Efflorescence , Nivetha’s honour with Sister oh sister and the literary fragrance that exhibited were marvellous. It keeps you enegetic
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Thanks Prasad for your inspiring comment.
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