Tragedy
of Telugu Poetry
“Poetry came in search of
me,” claimed Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet, long ago. Poetry knocks every one’s
door one time or other. Some are kind enough to open the door invite her. Some
pretend deep slumber and put a deaf ear to her persistent knocking. It is not
simple to get rid of a chasing poem. If you have a dream, you are under the
spell of a poem. No society on earth exists without a poem. If people speak
words, we call it language. If people are at loss of words to communicate their
feelings, poetry makes its entry.
Poetry begins where
language ends. Can we imagine poetry without language? Language takes another birth to weave poetry.
In other words, Poetry immortalizes language. Telugu as language was
immortalized a millennium ago. The Telugu script had the magical touch of
poetry long before the great poet Nannaya, started transcreating the “Maha
Bharatha” from Sanskrit to Telugu.
Telugu poetry has been flowing as a perennial river for thousand years. The last century of the millennium was more eventful than ever before. This was the century of modernity. Gurajada Appa Rao unveiled modern poem for the first time in Telugu literature. Not only to poetry, he injected modernity to other forms of literature, say short story and drama. He is relevant even today. His works are more modern than most of the present day writings in Telugu.
Telugu poetry has been flowing as a perennial river for thousand years. The last century of the millennium was more eventful than ever before. This was the century of modernity. Gurajada Appa Rao unveiled modern poem for the first time in Telugu literature. Not only to poetry, he injected modernity to other forms of literature, say short story and drama. He is relevant even today. His works are more modern than most of the present day writings in Telugu.
Many stalwarts like Sri
Sri, Joshua, Krishna Sastry, Tilak and Ajantha emerged to carry forward his
torch in this Century. Many literary movements have enriched Telugu poetry both
in form and content. Of all the movements, the two movements that erupted
during the last two decades of the century took away Telugu poetry to
unimaginable heights. Those were Feminist and Dalit movements. While eighties witnessed
the expression of women’s’ “body politic”, nineties made Dalit poets ventilate
their righteous indignation in their poetry of “self- respect’’.
These poets gave new
diction and enlivened the Telugu language. Telugu poetry is now entering the
new millennium with new voices. Interesting thing is, these poets have picked
the threads of modernity left by Gurajada. They owe much to him.
As most of the works of
these poets are left not translated into English and other Indian languages, The rest of the world does not know the spirit
of the age in Telugu Modern Poetry. Telugu poetry lovers feel disappointed,
when a substandard piece of not- so -familiar poet stands as a representative
piece of contemporary Telugu poetry in anthologies of Indian poetry. Tragedies
of this nature are not uncommon to Telugu literature.
