Rhyme and rhythm over frappe and latte

On the mezzanine floor of a popular coffee shop in south Mumbai, writer and artist Anjali Purohit tried to make herself heard over the Saturday evening buzz of the customers below. As the diverse audience listened intently, sipping their coffees and savouring the warmth of the ambience, Anjali spoke of the need to create a literary culture beyond the traditional platforms. Cappuccino Readings, held on April 5, the first of what she hopes will evolve into a series of poetry programmes, was one step in this direction, and the idea was to bring together young poets like Bhaskar Pitla and Rochelle Potkar to share their work along with other, more established, writers.

Back on October 3, 1986, when the Poetry Circle organised its inaugural event at the Cama Hall in Mumbai with similar intentions, there were few spaces in the city for poetry. A bookseller called Sudarshan Loyalka was to later offer the fledgling Circle a platform at his exhibition at Churchgate, and the Artists' Centre at Kala Ghoda was the Circle's home for a while. For the most part, poetry readings in English were confined to the third floor of the Theosophy Hall at New Marine Lines in Mumbai, where Nissim Ezekiel organised programmes for the Indian P.E.N, and to Ezekiel's own ground floor office, where the Circle members met.

Gradually, as these limited options began to fade away, newer spaces emerged. In 1998, an American journalist and dancer, Janet Fine, who had made Mumbai her home, persuaded art gallery owners to offer their space for a movement she called COHO — the Colaba-Cuffe Parade version of SOHO, she said, referring to the art district of New York. The COHO Art Walks, which involved poetry readings, music and even sponsored champagne in South Mumbai galleries, attracted many enthusiasts, and while some writers turned up their noses at what they perceived as a superficial engagement with literature, others were excited by the possibilities such locations offered. Unexpected venues opened up; the upscale Athena Champagne and Cigar Lounge in south Mumbai, for instance, played host to a fortnightly series of cultural events.

Traditionalists may have difficulty accepting unconventional platforms for their verse, but in the era of malls and glitzy coffee shops, writers are finding audiences at venues they would not have imagined a decade ago. In Chennai, the two-week-long Poetry with Prakriti festival, which has been running for seven years, gets writers to read their work, both in the rarefied environs of academic spaces, as well as in shops.

After all, if people won't go to poetry, then poetry must come to them.

The conventional view has always been that nobody is interested in poetry — at least, not enough to buy books, as the big publishers may tell us. Parmesh Shahani, head, Godrej India Culture Lab, disagrees. "I think that poetry as a literary form continues to thrive, whether in people writing it, whether in people studying it, whether in people sharing their work on online poetry forums," he says. "And certainly, there are poetry iterations, such as rap and hip hop, that ensure that the format continues to have a new voice and resonance for new audiences."

In December 2013, Shahani had organised Vikhroli Skin, a pop-up event where, for a single day, a 200,000 square foot factory warehouse was transformed into a venue for art, food, fashion, technology, music and much more. The inaugural programme, Mumbai Moulting, was a poetry reading, organised by Anjali Purohit.

"Spaces like our Godrej India Culture Lab create alternative venues not just for the performance of poetry, but also for contextualising it to today's times," Shahani explains.

"Shahani believes that such interventions, as well as their online archives, are creating alternative touch-points to engage with the medium. "Interest is certainly growing, especially among younger audiences," he says.

It's a trend that is catching on in other Indian cities too. Shikha Saklani Malaviya, author of a poetry collection, Geography of Tongues, and founding member at The 'Great' Indian Poetry Collective, says: "Alternative spaces are opening up for poetry in Bangalore such as Tuesdays with the Bard at Urban Solace (a cafe) which features poets weekly and Let Poetry Be, a monthly event, at Atta Galatta (a bookstore and cafe), in addition to poetry competitions, and readings."

Of course, the exposure to poetry cannot stop at such events; as Shikha points out, while it is great to have such spaces for poets and poetry, it also needs to be taken seriously in terms of craft or genre, and encouraged through workshops. "Sadly, most people think they are poets if they can rhyme," she says. If poetry is to continue attracting newer audiences, it must reach out to them in the places that they frequent – including bars and coffee shops. Alternative venues opening up are a welcome trend.