where have all the poets gone?

it’s been six years since dominic francis moraes died in his sleep, in the suburb of bandra, far from the dreaming spires of his youth. 52 years since he published his debut collection of poetry, a beginning. his body was laid to rest in the cemetery at sewri, as automobiles whizzed past on the street outside as usual.

once the most promising poet of our times — the youngest, and first non-english person to win the hawthornden prize ‘for the best work of the imagination’ — he was compelled to face his declining years in relative obscurity, choosing to fight cancer without a recommended treatment of radiation, fading away quietly while the rest of us carried on with the business of living dangerously.

it’s been six years since arun kolatkar faded into the ether. three decades since his masterpiece, jejuri, first made its presence felt. kolatkar didn’t own a telephone, organise public readings, or hire a pr agency to promote his poetry. when he died of cancer after a prolonged illness, no streets were named after him. today, few bookstores carry copies of jejuri, choosing instead to reserve shelf space for iim graduates who can’t write. jejuri was re-published by the new york review books classics series, two years after his death. copies are still hard to find here.

it’s been six years since nissim ezekiel died, slowly forgetting who he was. six years since we forgot who he was. winner of the sahitya akademi award for latter-day psalms, he became little more than the man whose poem, the night of the scorpion, appeared in high school english text books. without him, the pen all-india centre would be more irrelevant than it currently is. when nissim died, forgotten in his corner of mumbai, english newspapers called him ‘the father of post-independence indian verse in english’. the press trust of india gave him a 100-word obituary.

it’s been six months since dilip purushottam chitre died in pune. he faded away doing what he loved best — writing poetry in marathi and english, translating other poets, and painting whenever his health allowed him to. without chitre, many of us would never identify with seventeenth century bhakti poet tukaram. without him, the work of namdeo dhasal wouldn’t raise eyebrows beyond the streets of golpitha. his 70-year life of letters was reduced to a couple of paragraphs on page 4.

the government of maharashtra reserves most honours for a king who died 330 years ago. it chooses to ignore other kinds of heroes closer to our time, on a daily basis.