Pune Poetry Clubs: Of leisure, language and expression | Pune News

Garima Mishra, writer and a podcaster, began writing poetry five years ago and is now in the process of launching her own poetry club in Pune named KavitaKafe. Over the past few years, poets like Garima have started poetry clubs across the city which have gained momentum. Mishra herself has performed regularly at other poetry clubs such as Kitaabi Chai book cafe, and Raha Cultural centre.

From her experience of visiting different poetry circles Mishra says, “I have noticed that each group has its own flavour. At Kitabi Chai the crowd is very young and they are open to different forms and languages and are very generous in terms of appreciation. At Raha most of the crowd is older and a large number of poets write in Urdu and some in Hindi”.

The yellow room poetry club

What started seven years ago as a poetry meetup, now has special poetry circles for different languages. The Yellow Room Poet’s Club, run by Nukkad Café was started by the owner of the cafe, Vaibhav Paliwal and aspiring poet Simran Khanna.

Initially, all events were held at the Nukkad Cafe. But as more and more people started coming, it was decided to take it to different corners of the city. “It was to make it more accessible for everyone and we believe that poetry should become a part of everyone’s life,” said Paliwal. These meet-ups now happen across Aundh, NIMB, Viman Nagar, every Sunday.

As of now, they run three different language-specific segments under this poetry club. Kavyarang is their Marathi Poetry Meetup, Kaleidoscope for English, Hindustani Poetry for Hindi-Urdu Poetry enthusiasts. Recently, they have also started meet-ups specifically to present and appreciate Mushaira, a form of poetry, traditionally in Urdu. Apart from this, other poetry clubs in the city organise poetry events at Nukkad Café.

Most Read

1
What happens to your body if you only eat fruits for 72 hours?

2
World Cup final: After defeat to Australia, Rahul Dravid says India ‘gave everything’; unsure about his own future

“People who come are primarily inclined towards the art of expressing through poetry. One dives into poetry when they are alone, but after the piece is done, this is a platform where they can share. It also helps them connect with like-minded individuals,” said Paliwal.

Deewankhana

“I founded Deewankhana with a friend back in 2019, we parted ways and since then I have been handling it by myself,” said Vaibhav Gupta. The club was named so because it means a place where we sit and talk. “Deewan is bed and khana is room, during mughal times, they had these rooms for entertainment where poets and musicians used to come,” said Gupta.

Deewankhana is an open-mic poetry and music platform. They function on a monthly basis, with their next event coming up on December 2.
Around 40 people attend every event with at least half of them being regulars with age groups varying between 18 to 60. A lot of people from engineering and corporate backgrounds visit them for recreational purposes, said Gupta.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}