This Week in Poetry

Invictus: Unconquered Spirit with Professor Nedumaran Professor Nedumaran introduces an episode of “This Week in Poetry” featuring William Ernest Henley’s 1875 poem “Invictus,” describing it as a source of strength in dark times. He shares Henley’s background of severe suffering, including a tuberculosis of the bone diagnosis at 17, the amputation of his left leg below the knee, and writing the po...

This Week in Poetry: Srinivas Rayaprol (1925–1998) Professor Nedumaran introduces an episode of “This Week in Poetry” featuring Srinivas Rayaprol (1925–1998), born in Secunderabad, educated at Benares Hindu University and later Stanford, trained in civil engineering, and influenced by modern poetry discovered in the United States, though critical of some contemporary American poetry; he founded th...

Exploring the Poetic World of M. Yuvan: A Contemporary Tamil Poet In this episode of 'This Week in Poetry with Professor Nedumaran,' the focus is on M. Yuvan, an esteemed contemporary poet from Tamil Nadu. Professor Nedumaran introduces Yuvan's work, highlighting his contributions to 21st-century Tamil literature, specifically mentioning his two poetry collections, 'Thira Pahal' and 'Idhuvum Dhaan...

This Week in Poetry: A. K. Ramanujan on Waiting, Farewells, Returning, and Daily Drivel In this episode of This Week in Poetry, I read and discuss four poems by A. K. Ramanujan from Uncollected Poems and Prose (Oxford India Paperback, 2001), and I recommend Journey’s: A Poet’s Diary (Penguin Random House, 2019). I introduce “Waiting,” describing a speaker watching a family of four pass by while he...

This Week in Poetry Episode 9: Imtiaz Dharker and Life Between Borders In episode nine of This Week in Poetry, I introduce Imtiaz Dharker—born in Pakistan, raised in Scotland, and living between London and Mumbai—whose mixed heritage and itinerant life shape poetry that explores displacement, conflict, gender politics, and ideas of home, freedom, and faith. I present selections including “They’ll...

This week in Poetry - Episode Eight. In the coming weeks, we shall explore the amazing variety of poems in English written by Indian poets from the Pithamahan of Modernism, Nissim Ezekiel to the very young like Sivakami Velliyangiri, with their 'thoughts weaned in silence, but spoken as poems'. This is a whole new generation of poets exploring creativity with utter disregard for labels and...

Welcome back to this week in poetry - episode seven. A poem is communicated before it is understood. Hence, a poem shall be read aloud heard, especially its music, its orchestrated sounds. The listeners shall feel those sounds before attempting analysis, particularly content analysis. Poems were read aloud in public, in durbars, in the presence of kings and people. And therefore this week in poetr...

Welcome back to This Week in Poetry. Oh, I am absolutely thrilled to be back with my listeners after a break. We shall begin our new season, visiting some of the great minds who made a huge difference to the ways creativity and poetic imagination would take shape in the 20th century. In this episode, we shall listen to couple of poems from W. B. Yeats, the Anglo, Irish poet, and two poems from the...

In this episode, we have an impressive playlist of poems. We being with a reading of a poem by Billy Collins, an American poet. We also have Thomas Hood from the romantic period, and we close the episode with a poem by Meera. Needless to remind you, we are surrounded by words from the past and the present from east and west, north and south, we get giddy with emotions and thoughts, moods and feeli...

Episode 4: Shakespeare, Frost and Kavikko Abdul Rahman Professor Nedumaran welcomes viewers to this week’s poetry episode and introduces readings from “the Masters,” naming William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and Kavikko Abdul Rahman. He highlights Shakespeare’s enduring cultural influence and presents Sonnet 73, explaining it is not a romantic sonnet but a meditation on the “autumn of life” and gr...

This Week in Poetry: A. K. Ramanujan’s “Waiting,” “Farewells,” “Returning,” and “Daily Drivel” Professor Nedumaran introduces an episode of “This Week in Poetry” featuring poems from A. K. Ramanujan’s Uncollected Poems and Prose (Oxford India, 2001) and recommends Journey’s A Poet’s Diary (Penguin Random House, 2019). He discusses and reads four poems: “Waiting,” where a speaker watches a family w...

Hello there! Welcome to This week in Poetry with Prof. Nedumaran. In this episode we will be exploring the poems of Nissim Ezekiel.“Best poets wait for words”- Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher. Nissim Ezekiel waited for his words throughout his academic, poetic,public life. Through his poetry he asserted his identity as Indian, though born of Jewish parents. He was a promoter of poetry. Bruce King, the au...

In the opening episode of this podcast, Prof. Nedumaran reads a couple of poems written by Kamala Das - My grandmother's house and an introduction. Enjoy! Exploring Indian Poetry in English: Week 1 Professor Nedumaran dives into the world of Indian poetry in English in this podcast episode. He shares his journey with the English language and how he discovered various new words. He credits this cur...