THE POETRY SOCIETY

Poetry contains the essence of life. In our day to day functioning, whether we are attending college classes on zoom screens, going to our workplaces, coping with increasing alienation, grief and loss, poetry comforts us, tries to put into words and rhythm, our emotions. Poetry creates a community; it helps people tide over their vulnerable and weak moments. It is cathartic in a sense, and age-old, as songs and lyric have been a part of societies for a long time. It finds its echoes in the deep woods of nature, as much as it does in the concrete of the modern metropolis.

It is this nurturing and community-centric nature of poetry that The Poetry Society of St Stephen’s is dedicated to spreading. It is committed to the love and art of reading, listening and writing poetry. It provides a platform to the budding poets of St Stephen’s, organizes open mics and inter-college competitions. Talks and lectures are organized frequently, and people can listen to renowned poets and researchers. Above all, it is a space to bond over shared ideas and participate in stimulating discussions.

Instagram: poets_of_ststephens

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/poetrysoc-ssc/

Website: http://Poetsofststephens.blogspot.com

Upcoming events: Blackout Poetry (Collaboration with English Literary Society)

This event will be held in the first week of September. BlackoutPoetry is one of the most exciting events of the year, and the first one in the annual events’ calendar. It involves working with different kinds of poetry and creatively contributing to new ideas. The event involves blacking out certain sections of a page, to create poems.

Executive Council:
President
Manasvi James (IIIrd English )
 Vice-president
 Rayan Chakrabarti (IIIrd English)
Secretary
Abhishek Upadhyay (IIIrd BAP)
Traverse Convener
Boria Antik (IIIrd History)
 
Traverse co – convenor
Manya Singh (IInd BAP)
Editors
Sakshi Sinha (IInd English), Shivani Mishra (IInd English)
Publicity
Keerthana Haridas (IInd English),
Debangana Gogoi (IInd Chemistry)
Secretary
Aryan Naithani (IInd English)
Public Relations
Stuti Jacob (IInd English)
Treasurer
Nadia Makhijani (IInd Physics)

The Poetry Society organised Blackout Poetry on 8 September in collaboration with the English Literary Society. It was conducted in Room C, starting 4:00pm and lasting one hour. The event saw enthusiastic participation from members of both societies.

The participants were given printouts of pages from three texts, viz Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus”, Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. They were also given markers to black out parts of the text, leaving only poetry. This encouraged them to realise aesthetic potential in apparently artless and inorganic texts.

The printouts were then collected and put up for display at the café tree, where they remained an attraction for all junior members.

The annual DU slam poetry competition, a collaboration between the Poetry Society and the BA Programme Society, was held on 21st September, 2022 in the college seminar room.

It was a pan-DU slam poetry competition wherein participants from various colleges performed a torrent of poetry. The prompts for the competition were released some days before the event, and the participants were given adequate time for preparation. Contestants could participate either as individuals or in pairs. The judges for the event were Mr. Abhishek Mishra (department of Hindi, St. Stephen’s College) and Ms. Shivangi Verma (co-Founder, BookLeaf Publishing) who declared the top three winners of the competition.

The event ended with distribution of refreshments to all participants and volunteers and a series of informal group discussions on poetry and literature.