Bengaluru Poetry Festival (BPF) hosted by Atta Galatta was held at The Leela Palace Bangalore recently. The second edition of BPF that saw over 5000 poetry lovers attending the two-day festival last year, got only bigger and better this year. There were poets from across all languages, word palettes from all over the world and exclusive performances in verse and song. Poets new and old, lyricists, singers, performers and musicians. Some of the prominent dignitaries included Shabana Azmi, Vishal Bharadwaj, Usha Uthup, Nirupama Menon Rao, Ajoy Bose, Rabia Kapoor, Ramachandra Guha besides many others. The festival programming began with a Violin Performance by Aneesh Vidyashankar, the Walking Violinist.
The third edition of Bengaluru Poetry Festival attracted a number of internationally recognised poets and artistes with a weekend full of incredible poetry performances for literary connoisseurs of Bengaluru. Some of the highlights included performances, readings, discussions and debates by Gulzar, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pavan Varma, Ranjit Hoskote, Ashok Vajpeyi, Dr. Chandrashekhar Kambar, Mame Khan and many others. There were many interesting opportunities to learn from the various workshops that were a part of BPF.
Subodh and Lakshmi, the founders of Atta Galatta – the Bookstore and Events Space, realised that while poetry as a form of self-expression was gaining immense popularity, and Indian poets and poetry were increasingly being recognized the world over, there were limited opportunities available for poets within the existing literary festival platforms. So they, along with a core team of poets and poetry lovers, conceptualised BPF as a celebration of all things poetry. The festival provides a space for verse to be engaged with — by poets, readers, performers and the audience — across forms, formats and languages. The Festival Team included Shinie Antony – Festival Director, Amruta Dongray who has authored PASTPRESENT, Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury, a poet and writer with two books to her credit, Prashant Sankaran, Shikha Saklani Malaviya, Sourav Roy, Vikram Sridhar and of course Subodh Sankar and Lakshmi Subodh, the co-founders of Atta Galatta, a Bengaluru-based bookstore with a focus on Indian, vernacular writing and is a venue for literary, art and cultural events.
