Jagoori wins Vyas Samman for poetry celebrating love

Jagoori, whose rich and varied experience includes a stint in the army, said that all religions expressed themselves through poetry.

Noted Hindi poet Leeladhar Jagoori, whose poems often celebrate love and hope, received the KK Birla Foundation’s 2018 Vyas Samman on Wednesday for his collection of poems, Jitne Log Utne Prem, his 12th anthology of poetry.

Renowned author Govind Mishra presented the 28th Vyas Samman to Jagoori, saying the love that is celebrated in his poetry is capable of bringing freshness even to a city as polluted as Delhi. (Sanjeev Verma/HT)

Renowned author Govind Mishra presented the 28th Vyas Samman to Jagoori, saying the love that is celebrated in his poetry is capable of bringing freshness even to a city as polluted as Delhi.

Jagoori, whose rich and varied experience includes a stint in the army, said that all religions expressed themselves through poetry. “The first ever novel was the Ramayana written in India by Valmiki. Poems also helped in mathematics and without poetry, prose is incomplete,” he said.

The award is conferred especially for contributions to Hindi literature and carries a prize of Rs 4 lakh and a citation. The KK Birla Foundation also confers the Saraswati Samman and Bihari Puraskar for literature in Indian languages.

The citation said Jagoori presents a new world of experience, language, narrative and art. Jagoori’s poems are the ever-changing sounds of experiments and progress, it said.

Suresh Rituparn, member-secretary of the KK Birla Foundation, said Jagoori has played an active role in Hindi literature. Noted author Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, who is also the head of the selection panel for the Vyas Samman, said poetry enriched humanity. “No one has ever said the final word on poetry. No one should ever think that he has written the best poem. Firaq (Gorakhpuri) had said ‘there is no second class in poetry’.”