Last updated on August 14th, 2022 at 01:56 am
In the present situation, the work of some youths is going on by cutting completely from the literary print magazines. Many young people are completely dependent on Instagram and Facebook. It has its benefits, but the side effects are also not less.
There is such a blind race of reach on social media that it is very difficult to choose the right platform to read. I’ve mentored a few literary groups on Instagram. The number of his followers is in millions. I don’t know if they agree with me or give false consent, because they post very average and current poems every now and then. The curators of one of those pages tell that they are compulsive. The followers who have joined them, they want similar content. Reach decreases if very serious and good poetry is posted. Meanwhile, his rival Page overtakes him by pouring another formulaic poem.
Even in this age of crazy race to earn followers, there are many online mediums, who are doing serious work or have been doing it till a few years back. First of all mention the websites that are not systematically active on Instagram. Like poetry dictionary, for the first time, Anhad Kolkata etc. ‘Jankipul’ is basically a prose centric website, where poems are published occasionally. Platforms like ‘Scarecrow’ ‘HindiNest’ and ‘Anunaad’ are currently not active. The diary issue of ‘HindiNest’ is a special compilation of its kind available on the Internet in Hindi. The youth of Instagram should find and read these websites. They don’t have to put in a lot of extra effort to do this. All you have to do is go from one window to another on the Internet.
Now coming to the main issue. Here we are talking about the mediums on Instagram who believe in doing some serious work of long term importance rather than engaging in a blind race for momentary popularity. Five such platforms of my own choice which are doing good work on Hindi poetry:
Sadanira
‘Sadanira’ is a reliable magazine working in the direction of publication of Indian languages and world poetry in Hindi. It is published in both online and hard copy formats. Being published on Sadanira as a poet gives a deep satisfaction. Sadanira is doing the best work in publishing world poems translation and quotes. Sadanira inspires her translators to introduce new world poets to the new good and unknown world poets to the readers of Hindi. The World Poetry Archive of Sadanira should be perused by a reader from time to time. Issues of his magazine published in hard copy are also collectable. These days I look forward to his Polish poetry issue.
Sadanira is generously carrying out the responsibility of bringing new poets emerging from social media to serious literary readers. Apart from this, from time to time, poems of established and senior poets are published there. Some of these youths, when they become established poets, will probably remember that Sadanira had helped in giving their writings the initial merit.
Hindavi
It is possible that someone else puts ‘Hindavi’ above ‘Sadanira’. With a slight difference, ‘Hindvi’ is at number two in my choice. The reason for this is that the purpose of the two websites is different. ‘Hindavi’ is a documentary work. Till the time of writing this article, 9463 compositions of 825 poets are available on Hindavi. He may have a stage like ‘Hindvi’, ‘Kavita Kosh’ in his vision, but he is more careful in his selection. That is why ‘Kavita Kosh’ and ‘Hindavi’ become important for different reasons.
I would advise new poets to read other poets on ‘Hindvi’ for the time being. Before trying to be published on ‘Hindvi’, it should be ensured that sufficient quantity of poems have been written so that the representative works from them are selected and sent to ‘Hindvi’. A section of readers can form an initial opinion about your poet on the basis of those works. As time progresses and the importance of online platforms will increase, this readership of Hindvi will become more and more wide.
Posham Pa
You want to write poetry and, of course, read too. But you think that the poet should have some knowledge of other genres also, should have experience of reading, then ‘Posham Pa’ is the perfect place for your reading. Here, poems, stories, articles, translations, book reviews, etc., give place to the compositions in the genres. You will find some compositions on ‘Posham Pa’ even in the endangered genre like letters. Here you can read Manto and also young poets like Sandeep Nirbhay.
Among the innovative uses of ‘Posham Pa’ are ‘Sarparan’, where he presents interesting sentences from the dedication page of a book. Posham Pa has been improving its content quality since its inception.
Rainbow
If there is one most underrated online platform related to Hindi poetry among the youth of Instagram, then it is ‘Indradhanush’. ‘Rainbow’ originated at a time when most young poets/readers had taken a moment to shine on Instagram pages as their goal.
Serious literary writers give preference to ‘Rainbow’. He writes for ‘Indradhanush’ and reads the material published there. Interviews of senior litterateurs can also be read on ‘Indradhanush’. Some important translations by Anchit and senior litterateur Srivilas Singh have recently been published on ‘Indradhanush’. Anchit has translated the poems of Hindi’s peak poet Alok Dhanva into English for ‘Indradhanush’. Under the ‘New Leaves’ column, ‘Indradhanush’ is also doing the work of irrigating new Hindi saplings.
Poems India/Manthan
This is the only platform I found after coming on Instagram, which I stop and read. Poems India publishes works in both Hindi and English languages. ‘Manthan’ is his new Instagram handle created separately for Hindi, but the website for both the languages is the same. Poems India is enriching Hindi in a unique way. Many youths with Hindi background but studying English are getting acquainted with Hindi poetry through this website and seeing how rich literature is being written in their own language too.
Another quality of Poems India is the elegance of the presentation. They invite poems from time to time on different templates. These poems are published on their Instagram handle or website. In its monthly newsletter and yearbook, the editorial board of Poems India finds and places wonderful works. A curious youthful fervor is visible in the selection of poems on this medium.
