VAK – THE RAZA BIENNALE OF ASIAN POETRY: 15 to 17 February 2019
Organised in collaboration with The Raza Foundation
The festival will present poets from Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Palestine, Singapore, South Korea, Uzbekistan and Vietnam
16:30-17:00: Opening Remarks by Ashok Vajpeyi
Launch of VAK-A Collection of Asian Poetry
17:00 onwards: SESSION I: Chaired by Ashok Vajpeyi
17:00 -17:20: Ko Un South Korea
17:20 - 17:40: Kutty Revathi India
17:40 - 18:00: Amir Or Israel
18:00 - 18:20: Afsar Rahbeen Afghanistan
18:20 - 19:20: Conversation: Freedom and Dissent in Poetry
Speakers: Marine Petrossian Armenia; Udayan Vajpeyi India; Nguyen Hoang Bao Viet Vietnam; Najwan Darwish Palestine
Freedom is a key concept for poetry. It asserts and explored it; it seeks it against all constraints; its quest for freedom is a quest which is almost for all human freedoms. It can be reasonably argued that poetry is a permanent indestructible site for freedom.
In our times, as in many times, earlier, freedom is in jeopardy and poetry becomes inevitably a struggle for freedom.
Freedom is also a liberation from the strongholds of blind faith, parochial ideologies, hatred of others, violence, etc. freedom achieves its validity indeed inner truth by allowing space for and giving dignity to dissent. In times as pours when mass structures of power dominate, poetry deeply rooted in freedom is also, because of the pressing circumstances, dissent