T.S. Chandra Mouli: Thanks for permitting us to interview you, friends! How and when did you start writing poetry?

P. Gopichand & P. Naga Suseela: We started writing poetry when we were in college. It was an accident.  We wrote for our college magazine.

TSCM: Please tell us some thing about your childhood, studies,pl.

Gopi: I studied B.A. Literature and secured 9th rank in Nagarjuna University. I did my  M.A.  from Nagarjuna University and secured Fourth place. Then I did M.Phil in Linguistics from Pandit Ravishankar Shukla |University and I secured Second place in the University.  Right from my childhood I participated in stage plays both in Telugu and English.

Suseela: I also studied B.A. Literature. But with Science background. After attempting EAMCET  I switched over to Literature. I got M.A.& M. Phil in Linguistics from Pandit Ravishankar |University, Raipur, M.P. Secured distinction in M.Phil. Then did B. Ed & M. Ed in English & Spl. English from Madras University besides HDSE from NIIT.

From the school days I had a special taste in fine arts & sports, participated in many competitions won prizes.

TSCM: What are your concerns as a poets?

PG & PNS: Human values, sense and sensibility are fast vanishing and we are afraid a new senseless society may arise where Caliban and green-eyed monsters may fill this world.

TSCM: What perceptible influences are there on your poetry?

PG & PNS: We have our own style of perception and expression. Though we’re exposed to wide range of poets of all ages we’ve never been influenced by any one of them. India has a rich tradition of Aesthetics and Poetics. The Ramayana and The Mahabharatha have all the wonderful things that are there in World literatures. Milton’s Paradise Lost, Browning’s poems, poetry of Khalil Gibrana, Emily Dickinson and Sri Sri made an indelible mark on our feelings. We made an exhaustive study of Sarojini Naidu, Kamala Das, Ramanujan, and Rabindranath Tagore.  

TSCM: Do you feel social consciousness or ideological approach are necessary for a poet? Could you elaborate?

PG & PNS: Social consciousness is a must for a poet. Ideologies reflect in our living and in our percepts. A poet must be a seer. He must have a foresight to foretell and also mould the coming generations.

TSCM: How do you employ images and symbols in your poetry?

PG & PNS: We write in two kinds of souls. One for our students and the other for scholars. For our students we employ images that are known to them and visible around us. When it comes to free verse global scenes and universal objects are used as symbols.

TSCM: What are the recurring themes and images in your poems? Could you give a few examples, pl?

[You may quote a few lines of poems too here, if required]

PG & PNS: Love, life, death, loss of values, nature, peace, war, eco-issues, women’s problems etc are the recurring problems in our poetry.

Bomb blasts erode our daily life on earth;
Nations lose patience, and pestilence-stricken minds
Brood, breed and nurture bacteria of ambitions:
The world is no longer at ease.
—— From No Longer at Ease

Grocery shops and village fairs filled our stomachs
Supermarkets and malls drill a hole to our purse
Worse we feel when we talk of satisfaction
Ha! Brave New World!
—— Ha! Brave New World!

Puppets puppets puppets,
The strings of fancies push us to dance,
To our own tunes or to the tunes of others;
But love for labour is lost.
—— Grand Puppet Show ?!

What happens between inhaling and exhaling?
What happens between birth and death?
What happens between awakening and sleeping?
—— Mystery

To unwrap Life, Literature fails;
Music, dance, art and poetry
Fail to portray life
Life’s history makes life a mystery!
—— Currents of Life

Om, cross and crescent,
Ignite fires of wild fury;
Hey Ram, calm our passions.
—— An invocation for Calm

World need words to restore peace
World of words build our bonds
Create your world with words
Conform the world with words
—— World of Words

Youth a victim to lust and liquor
All is lost in this world
Experience remains  a mist
May Ganga rid us of our sins!
—— May Ganga Rid Us Of Our Sins!

TSCM: Do you feel poetry festivals or meets promote poetic creativity? Are they relevant at all?

PG & PNS: Poetry fests are useful because they give scope to people to think for a while about poetry. Serious poets can be heard and their works can ignite spark in tender souls.

Some fests have become a stage for propaganda even then we feel that fests will inspire some poets to write poetry and poetry has the power to keep the senses of human beings in proper order.Fests are the best platforms where senior & budding poets can express,
interact, share, & inspire one another. They are quite relevant to keep up creative abilities are infusing life into genre of poetry.

TSCM: Tell us something about the Poetry Fests you are organizing.

PG & PNS: We’ve been organizing Poetry Fests since 2008. Every year we invite unpublished poems from the poets all over India and abroad. After short listing, we publish them with ISBN number and present a copy of the anthology to all the poets who attended the Fest. We send the copies to the poets who couldn’t make it for the Fest through courier or post.

So far we’ve published 4 volumes of poems viz Heart-Throbs, A Posy of Poesy, Poets’ Paradise and The Fancy Realms. So far we’ve added 836 poems to the body of Modern English poetry in the World. We ‘re doing all these fests with out any registration fee. Free accommodation, local hospitality like lunch, dinner and snacks are served free of cost besides presenting a copy of the book free of cost to all the poets.

TSCM: How do you meet the expenses to organize such fests?

PG & PNS: We feel it’s our responsibility to do certain things to literature and society. It’s our personal contribution. Both of us kept apart some amount we get from our salaries, and remuneration we get in academic activities we conduct regularly. Every year we spend more than one lakh rupees to organize the fest on our college campus. We never feel it a burden.

TSCM: What is your contribution to the teaching community?

PG & PNS: We design different varieties of teaching aids to teach communication skills, phonetics and grammar interestingly and innovatively. We also design cards for teachers with messages in haiku on them. We ‘ve organized more than 25 workshops for teachers and lecturers on teaching creative writing, short-story, teaching skills and short poems etc. Usually, we organize them in the National seminars, Conferences and UGC Refresher courses.

TSCM: As a poet what is your view of the prevailing scenario?

PG & PNS: We are happy that many are writing poetry. Thanks to e- journals and poetry journals that are encouraging poetry. Blogging breathed new life into poetry. One can have a site of ones own and publish poetry. Web made poetry beautiful, as poets fuse poetry with art, music and scenes from nature. There is the danger of dull and drab sentences to be called as poems and sometimes some people think that statements too pass for poetry.

TSCM: What are the trends you could notice in post-Independence Indian English Poetry?

PG & PNS: We think after our freedom India excelled well in all literary realms. In poetry India is unique. We have spiritual tradition where we embrace the whole universe. So Indian poetry is at once natural, emotional, unnatural, supernatural, absurd and fresh as honey. Seeing, experiencing and narrating is subjective and objective in the same plane for the individual.

TSCM: Which trends have gained ground? What is conspicuous now?

PG & PNS: Many popular regional trends crept into Indian poetry in English. Owing to the popularity in the state and because of the passion to put it in English for the vast readers many new forms enriched Indian Poetry in English. Haiku, Tanka, Senryu etc spread into almost all Indian languages. Nanilu and Rekkalu winged into in to English.

TSCM: Could you sum up your views on your poetry, please?

PG & PNS: We have written poems when we are moved by the beauty of nature, struck in deep sorrow when calamities like earth quakes and Tsunamis shattered us. We wrote when terrorists destabilized peace in Taj attacks, bomb blasts in trains and railway stations. We find pleasure in writing poetry while travelling to seminars and conferences.

TSCM: What is your prognosis of Indian English poetry?

PG & PNS: Indian English poetry is powerful, universal and philosophical. It depicts all human feelings appealing to all in the world. It is a replica of Indian culture, custom, costume, tradition and festivals which have global appeal. There is a wide variety of themes and experiments in Indian English poetry.

TSCM: How far the trends or movements abroad have influenced Indian English poetry? Kindly elaborate.

PG & PNS: Indians wrote under foreign influence till independence and a little later. From 1960s we find the clear mark of Indianness and individuality in all major Indian poets. The form may be foreign but the thought and expression are clearly Indian. Even the Western world has accepted the talent, ability, capacity and capability of Indian poets.

TSCM: How far these have had an impact on your thought or craft, please?

PG & PNS: Haiku, senryu influenced a lot. T.S Eliot’s poetry and Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, Tagore’s Gitanjali influenced a lot. We felt that it is easy for our students to express their feelings and we experimented a lot for over a decade. We published a book of Haiku as a model to our students. In it we have taken common topics like cricket, library, money, language lab, coffee, exercise, cookies and the list is about 100 topics. Later we created interest in our students and started doing posters guiding our students. Some of the topics are… ‘Rains and Pains’ on farmers’ suicides, Exhibition of medicinal plants, Examinations, Farewell Party, Population, Pollution, Friendship Day etc.

We did some serious poetry in free verse like No Longer at Ease, Hey! Ram Calm our passions, Ganga Rinse our Sins, Oh! Brave New World, Love’s Labour is Lost.

TSCM: Thanks for sharing your erudite views on poetry in general and Indian English poetry in particular. It helps us in appreciating your poetic thought better.

PG & PNS: Our pleasure, sir.