lndian English Poetry

Story of Indian English Poety

In India, poetry began to be written as early as the early part of the 19^th century. Henry Lois Vivian Derozio, Kasi Prasad Ghosh, Toru Dutt and Manmohan Ghosh, were the poineers. Sarojni Naidu, also known as the 'nightinagle of India' wrote poems such as 'village song' 'Songs of Radha' and 'A soul's prayer' reveal the 'heart' of India. Rabindra Nath Tagore, the Nobel laureate, In 'The Gitanjali' and Aurobindo Ghosh in "The Savitri' made moral and spiritual quest. In 20^th Century poets like Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Raman Ujan, R. Parthasarathy, Jayant Mahapatra, P. Lal, Keki N. Daruwala, Shiv K. Kumar, Pritish Nandi, Arun Kolatkar and Kamala Das transforme Indian poetry in English. When Ezekiel describes the island of Bombay as

Unsuitable for song as welp as sense the island flowers into slums and skyscrapers, reflecting precisely the growth of my mind he voices the disillusionment of his age. At the same time, he uses controlled statments with ironical meaning. The language was suitable for depicting harsh realities of like. Kamala Das is more bold and bitter in portraying her frustration as a woman.