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Poetrywala turns 20
The journey of the successful Indian small press for English poetry is especially remarkable as most poetry presses are ephemeral
Poetrywala, India’s premier small press for English-language poetry, turned 20 this year. Along the way, it has published around 150 collections, mainly from India, and translated from English, Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Portuguese, Maltese, French, Spanish and other languages. Among these books are those from many important Indian poets of various generations. Poetrywala’s publishing track record has given it a lot of prestige and, without exaggeration, the status of an imprimatur among the Indian-English poetry community.
“Every poet worth their salt wants to be published by Poetrywala,” says indie publisher Dibyajyoti Sarma. According to him, Poetrywala is “building a future library, a repository”, or as I like to call it, community memory. Among Poetrywala’s collections are those from important poets now deceased, whose other books are out of print. Sarma cites an instance: “Gieve Patel is gone, but I am so glad Poetrywala did a Collected Poems. I am glad the book exists, and Poetrywala will keep it in circulation.” Another is Dilip Chitre.
Emerging writers and poets, too, of whom I’m one, have gained inspiration and aspirations from books published by this tiny publisher with a big impact.
Poetrywala’s journey is a wholly remarkable one because most poetry presses are ephemeral. Many indie presses germinated, produced a handful of important collections, and evanesced by intention or for exigency.
This at a time when poetry is hardy as grass, it occurs everywhere. It can spring up at each momentous occasion, a date or breakup or wedding or funeral or even beyond – say, the reading of a will may occasion happy and sad poetry depending on individual circumstances. It’s just that few readers pay for poetry.
Writing poetry is lovely as a blessing and pays next to nothing. Most poetry collections not only in India but pretty much anywhere, take years to sell out. Slow burn? I’ll say. Most Indian poets get no royalties fit to live on, and so, barring lyricists or singer-songwriters, poets keep day jobs. That’s why it is a big deal that a poetry press has a two-decade innings embodying both passion for art and a knack for remaining solvent; Poetrywala is also proof that poetry is supported by a paying, niche readership.
This trailblazer small press of the 2000s inspired the birth of other indie publishers. These now comprise the cottage industry for English-language poetry in India. Nary is the mainstream publisher who this way comes. A literary agent pitching to mainstream publishers handles few poets, even well-known ones. For instance, literary agent Kanishka Gupta sells a slew of prose manuscripts to mainstream publishers and few in poetry. Asked about the ethos of Poetrywala, Gupta hails their “lifelong love for and commitment to publishing new and established poets without keeping in mind profits and gains”. Small poetry presses run on fervour, partly because mainstream publishers bring out scant numbers of poetry collections, and understandably so, given that sales figures for poetry don’t add up.
Yet Poetrywala, in contrast to mainstream publishers, would bring out about ten collections a year. “We have now become more selective,” Hemant Divate says. Today, they publish up to six a year. “There are more indie publishers now,” he says. Poetrywala’s example, Sarma says, showed him that a small poetry press could be run for long and viably.
Running a small press requires enterprise. “We recover the cost of production when 172 copies are sold, at which point royalties are paid to authors,” says Hemant. Print on demand makes things easier by removing the need to store stacks of books in humid Mumbai and its tiny residences. Tech advances and a fat catalogue ensures that over 20 years, Poetrywala’s current sales can fund upcoming publications. Hemant and his spouse and co-founder, Smruti Divate devote a chunk of their time to Poetrywala. It’s their labour of love. I would call it one of their children.
READ MORE: Interview – Hemant Divate, co-founder, Poetrywala
Small poetry presses are run like a mission and this is understandable given the mental makeup of writers and readers of poetry. Readers of Indian poetry in English are profoundly partisan supporters of printed verse. These are mostly poets themselves, practising and aspiring ones, or even an occasional screenwriter attempting to find in printed verse an innocence misattributed to poets, and, of course, literary scholars. Serious readers of poetry in India, as elsewhere, are erudite and passionate about the art and the artist.
Legion are the books of prose read and laid aside, even as poetry collections, the good ones, are remembered and championed by readers till their last breath. These books are lived with, like features of the landscape, say, like the tree outside the window, a star winking through the trees, or a rock to which is lassoed a raft good to take to the other shore. I, for instance, keep a volume of collected poems by a famous poet by my bedside, and have for years. Now and again I re-read a few pages or eyeball the spine and recall lines from, say, Arun Kolatkar’s “no more a place of worship this place/ is nothing less than the house of god”, which puts me in mind of Lao Tsu’s not analogous line, “(The Tao) is content with low places that people disdain”. All lovers of poetry will know what this recalling is like. Often, the sight of the book, or even knowing it is there, evokes fresh motivation and optimism for the writer’s calling.
Making such a tender connection happen is the higher purpose of poetry publishers, one of their “reasons why”. Smruti Divate recalls a recent phone call with a buyer. “(The man) bought books from us, and got our number from somewhere, and rang us up,” she says. “He asked if he was permitted to speak to me. He was so diffident. He thanked me for what we did. He’d bought around a thousand rupees’ worth of books; it must have been an investment for him. When we went to the post office to mail his books to the provided address, the place was unknown to us, so we had to double-check it. It was clear that our books are now going into the interior of India.”
If a publisher knows their books matter so much, they embrace their calling. Sarma (interviewed separately) adds: “So you need two things, passion and emotional investment – ‘I will maintain it, I will continue it despite setbacks and frustration.’” Sarma should know, being an active indie publisher with a growing catalogue in poetry and, more recently, fiction. “Every other day I wake up and (think)… this is it, I am closing down (Red River). And there will be these moments, until a new project comes around and you feel excited about it,” he says. It’s a personal emotional Sensex the Divates have ridden for two decades.
All poets, Hemant Divate is one, tend to obsess about oblivion. Perhaps there is yet another reason for Poetrywala to exist – the natural desire to make history. It is one of the only ways to become immortal.
Hemant Divate has alluded to another reason in previous interviews – his feeling alienated in the Marathi poetry scene and his wishing for a community of like-minded folks. As a young poet, he had plunged into his art. As he became a mature poet, his sensibilities seem to have cleaved from those of most publishers in Marathi. “There was no space (for Marathi-language poets) to do something different,” he says, speaking of the 1990s. In Marathi, it rings like the lament it is: “Kaahi vegala karaaychi jaagaach navhati.” (There was no space to do anything different.) In the 1990s, his poetry in Marathi sounded like how people spoke in the megacity at that time. His work also eschewed heavy symbolism. It was different.
Richter-scale-tweaking changes were happening. The Cold War thawed and then evaporated, and meanwhile India was gripped by Mandir and Mandal politics. That was also when liberalisation was ushered in by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh, opening the economy to private enterprise.
The real and virtual highways of globalisation joined India to the world in new ways. Bombay/Mumbai poets, like others, as Nabina Das and Semeen Ali write in an anthology of poets called 40 under 40, “benefited from the paradoxical process of globalisation, which, if it enslaves economies, can also liberate the imagination in unprecedented ways”. Hemant reminisces, “It was like globalisation, liberalisation, privatisation, and technology were making the world resonate as one. Language was changing, imagery (in poems) was changing.” The Divates saw no sense in embracing older idioms. Their poetic and publishing sensibilities responded to social, cultural and economic change – at times coming to bittersweet terms with it, at times joyously embracing its more fluid borders, its wide avenues for dialogue and recognition. For instance, Hemant travels to international poetry festivals to read his own translated work, which takes his name and that of his press beyond the oceans.
Poet/editor Adil Jussawalla, co-founder of Clearing House, which brought out several important collections of poetry before its much-lamented closure, recalls the period just before Poetrywala was founded in 2003. Before that, says Jussawalla, there were very few avenues for publishing English poetry by Indian poets. A poet either tried to place their collection abroad or self-published it here in India; a very few small presses brought out very few books.
“As Bombay changed to Mumbai,” says French literary scholar Manon Boukhroufa-Trijaud, quoting a scholarly paper she authored, “its traditional poetic scene decayed; poets dispersed to distant suburbs, neighbouring cities, or even abroad; and the fragile ecosystem of publishing collectives disappeared.” I can imagine how lonely poets, especially those writing in English, must have felt.
The Divates were already bringing out a journal in Marathi known as Abidha to promote contemporary poetry. In 2002, they launched Abidhanantar (‘After Abidha’), a publishing imprint for poetry collections. The leap to publishing English-language books was large but doable for them. In 2003, when bilingual poet Dilip Chitre told Hemant about the lack of poetry presses for English-language work, he and Smruti took the plunge with Poetrywala – a name Chitre suggested.
Says Boukhroufa-Trijaud, “In recent years, poetry (in English in India) has managed to survive thanks in part to the tireless efforts of the Divates’ small and innovative publishing house”. Poetrywala, to cite one innovation flagged by the French scholar, sells online on various websites including their own, and in select book stores in India.
All this sounds glamorous but much of it is mundane. Passion is necessary but insufficient for the Divates. What they also have and continue to have is an affinity for accounting, a knack for inventory management, and an appetite for dropping parcels off at the post office. This also involves hands-on editing and midwifing a manuscript from laptop to print. Hemant takes a call on acceptances and makes the executive decisions about the publications, and Smruti pitches in with opinions on book design and also handles other crucial tasks. Writer/editor Semeen Ali recalls that Hemant played a crucial role in suggesting names for the anthology of poems that eventually became 40 under 40. He suggested a few poets, too, and his choices went on to pleasantly surprise Ali, as they submitted poems which were apt for the anthology. Hemant also paid attention to the minutiae of editing and proofreading. Also, Ali adds, “which poet to be placed where in the book in order to retain the flow”. She says, “When you have someone who is so involved in the creation of a book, you want to give more than your 100% since you see that level of involvement in your idea by your publisher. And it is while working on this book for Poetrywala, that I realised how passionate one can be in the crafting of a book.”
Creative differences were bridged or abided with grace. Ali adds, “I remember Hemant expressing dissatisfaction with certain poems, a sentiment he still holds. However, despite our differences, the mutual respect endured. Even when opinions clashed over the inclusion of specific works, the atmosphere remained one of understanding. It is that level of comfort where you can voice your opinion and not be dismissed or dissed that matters.”
Poetrywala books are distinctive, featuring a spare, chic aesthetic, workmanlike font choice, generous use of white space, a striking cover, and good quality paper that holds up well to the humid, coastal air of my hometown, Mumbai.
To return to the twentieth anniversary, Poetrywala has recently become a foundation. Turning a private limited company into a foundation creates chances for non-sale revenues, such as donations. One donation has enabled them to have a poetry festival to mark their twentieth anniversary. The Mumbai Poetry Festival is scheduled for January 2024. This won’t be their first such event. Poetrywala’s earlier festival, which I attended, was held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, in 2018. It was one of the high points in English-language poetry in the city. It was a place to hear poems, to make new acquaintances and to buy books not easily found offline. Hemant recalls that the pop-up poetry stall at TISS sold books worth ₹70,000 during the festival. The upcoming festival, too, promises to be a heartwarming event, and a fitting celebration of the two-decade ongoing journey of Poetrywala.
Suhit Bombaywala’s factual and fictive writing appears in India and abroad. He tweets @suhitbombaywala
