Sound Effect

The sudden spell of rain and grey skies this weekend in Delhi was an appropriate setting to listen to thoughtful verse.

The sudden spell of rain and grey skies this weekend in Delhi was an appropriate setting to listen to thoughtful verse. And the lush green lawns of the French Information Resource Centre (FIRC) at Aurangzeb Road had an energetic Sudeep Sen,editor of Atlas and editorial director of Aark Arts,reciting in his booming voice from his poem Kiss as a languorous breeze fanned the drizzle in the faces of guests gathered in the perfectly manicured lawns.

And as the 44-year-old Delhi-based poet held forth over the faintest smell of ocean and salt-lipped breeze images of wide roads and red-brick houses from Chandigarh and cathedrals at Brasilia by Stephane Herbert played on the screen hoisted behind him.

The 11th edition of the Poetry Recitation Festival organized by FIRC and the French Embassy also saw fabulous recitations by French poet-art collector Franck Andre Jamme and art critic-poet Ashok Vajpeyi. Verse mingled with blown-up reproductions of photos by French photographer Henri-Cartier Bresson,projected on giant screen as Jamme read out his compositions.

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As the evening progressed,the differences in the styles of the poets became more striking. While a sharp-eyed Jamme,51,talked of smashing the words each time on the watery brick of silence through his verse from his recently published book New Exercises,a calm Vajpeyi held forth on death,an obsessive theme with the poem Vaapsi.

The poetry session,punctuated by unexpected rain,was resumed in the library as guests squeezed inside some sitting on steps to hear Jamme preserve till the end the secret parcel of feeling.

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