Date:Sunday, 10th February
Time: 13:30 – 16:30
Venue: Bombay Natural History Society, Auditorium
Conducted by: Ranjit Hoskote
One of the best ways of preparing for poetry, apart from trusting the senses and sharpening the mind, is to dip into the vast archive of poetic forms and concerns from around the world, which we inherit as contemporary writers. Ranjit Hoskote will discuss the pastoral, which is one of the oldest forms of poetry, and lead a workshop dedicated to its understanding and its practice.
Beginning in Greek and Latin poetry as an evocation of the simplicity and serenity of Arcadia — in a world already made complex by urban life, military intrigue and transnational trade — the pastoral has taken on many avatars. We find its energies in the nostalgic Renaissance poem for the garden, the forest or the meadow, recalled at the heart of court and city. It becomes the nature poem of the Romantics, retrieving waterfall and meadow in a landscape transformed by the Industrial revolution. We encounter it, again, as the dream of instinctual life, closer to the animal world than human psychology; and in the new ecological poem.
Hoskote will speak on the pastoral, its history and possibilities, offering examples that include Marvell, Keats, Ted Hughes, Amy Clampitt, as well as a range of contemporary poets. He will also encourage workshop participants to test out the form, see how they can incorporate it in their own lives and engage with it in their own writing.
(More about the workshop leader and details on how to register below the fold.)
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and independent curator. He is the author of fourteen books, including five collections of poetry, six studies of art and artists, an edited anthology, a translation, and a cultural history. His most recent books are Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems, 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006), Kampfabsage (Random House/ Blessing Verlag, 2007), and The Crafting of Reality, Sudhir Patwardhan: Drawings (The Guild, 2008). Hoskote was a Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1995) and writer-in-residence at Villa Waldberta, Munich (2003). He has received the Sanskriti Award for Literature (1996) and also the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award (2004). As a literary organiser, Hoskote has been associated with the PEN All-India Centre and the Poetry Circle Bombay for two decades. He was President of the Poetry Circle (1992 - 1997) and has been general secretary of the PEN All-India Centre since 1999.
[More: poetry, essay (PDF), interview, a feature on Poetry International Web, and his book in German.]
To register
Please mail kalaghoda DOT workshops AT gmail DOT com with the subject line ‘The Pastoral.’
In your mail, please include:
1. Your name, an email address and a phone number (preferably cellular)
2. A line or two about your previous experience in this area.
3. A line or two about what you’re looking for from this workshop.
There are only 20 seats available. Please register early!
Please inform us well in time if you need to drop out, so we can free the seat for someone else.
Please make sure you are at the workshop venue 15 minutes before the posted start time.
We will inform all registered participants about any changes in schedules. But please keep an eye on this post as well for any changes.
