Two separate poetry discussions were held in the Capital on Sunday, featuring poets from Nepal, India, Singapore, Pakistan, Malaysia and the Philippines. The event, held at the Evoke Café in Jhamsikhel, saw discussions on two topics: Spoken Word as a Tool for activism and Speaking Many Tongues. The panels were part of a week-long international spoken word poetry festival, titled Words Express: The Spoken Word Jatra, which commenced on September 17.

Speaking at one of the discussions—Spoken Word as a Tool for Activism—Indian poet Divya Dureja said, “Poetry plays a very important role in bringing discussions to the table. I think raising social issues or sharing personal stories of injustice will help the audience become more aware about the topic and even encourage them to share their stories.” Dureja has been voicing her support for the rights of the LGBTQ community through her poetry in Delhi, India.

In another discussion—Speaking Many Tounges—poets, Melizarani T. Selva and Zuela Herrera spoke on how being multilingual affected their poems. Speaking about her own dilemma while choosing a language to write in, Melizarani said, “I learned Bahasa Malaysia and English growing up but my parents are from South India so I heard Tamil here and there at my house as well. So, when I started writing poetry, I mostly wrote in English and Bahasa Malaysia but I felt as if I was losing my Tamil background and other languages were colonising my mother tongue, which made me feel bad. So, I started to throw few Tamil words here and there in my poems.” The panelist went on to discuss how the assimilation of different languages made poetry more interesting, rather than diluted, as some purists would argue. They also asserted that a happy-medium—where languages compliment and not detract from each other—can be reached through the vehicle of poetry.

The discussions wrapped up with performances by the visiting poets and Word Warriors from Nepal.

The week-long event which incorporates performances and various discussion series, with Nepali as well foreign poets, aims to explore spoken word poetry as an art form from a variety of different perspectives-expression, educational tool, social event and political power. The fest features poets from countries such as India (D’ Rochelle D’silva and Divya Dureja), Malaysia (Melizarani T Selva), Pakistan (Zainab Zahra Syed), Philippines (Zuela Herrera), Singapore (Deborah Emmanuel), United States (Sarah Kay), and poets from Word Warriors Nepal.

The Jatra will now move to Chitwan, Pokhara before wrapping up on September 24 with an event at Moksh in the Capital. The festival is being organised jointly by Quixote’s Cove and the Word Warriors.