“I had been writing poetry and had an interest in typography for a long time now. And I decided to bring the two together,” says Makhija, an assistant director based in Mumbai. No wonder filmmaker Aparna Sen describes his works as ‘brave and fresh’.

Thirty-one-year old Ahmedabad-based Nikhil Parekh doesn’t actually speak Makhija’s language. ‘The impoverished eyes irrefutably splashed it, when joyously splashed with unfathomable cisterns of overwhelmingly poignant empathy’, writes Parekh in his book Love versus Terrorism that he wrote in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage. Understandably, subtlety is not his way and opulent rhetoric replicates thoughts and musings on topics and events relevant in this day. But the internet has acted as a boon for this poet, helping him reach out to several people who probably don’t enjoy the nuances of subtle, deep rhetoric. “My websites, blogs, forums, etc combined together get over 7 to 10 thousand viewers to my poetry, poetry books daily,” says Parekh. That is how he got noticed by the US-based Charles Klusener, of flashpoetry.net, who added music and visuals to his work in an attempt to make his poems more engaging.

“The technology to combine poems, imagery and music on a home desktop and immediately upload them to the internet for all the world to see like my website at www.flashpoetry.net has never before been available to an amateur,” says Klusener. And Parekh definitely thinks that the innovation helps his creations reach people ‘more effectively’. “With the advent of web sites like Myspace, Youtube and Facebook, it is my belief that the future of new poetry creations will be in movie files like I make,” adds Klusener.

... contd.