Imagery and Figures of Speech: Vehicles for the Power of Poetry

The aim of the talk

The purpose of this presentation is to familiarize you with some gems of poetry in Sanskrit and my native language – Marathi—as well as in English. Also of equal importance is to recite some of these verses with attention to their rhythm and “melody”. This way, you’ll know how poetry in Indian languages sounds.

Before I embark on this, it would be good to maintain one position, to clarify and emphasize one matter, one point: Prose and Poetry are not two poles – not polar opposites. They rather form a spectrum, a continuum, on the axis of {self} expression. When prose employs some of the characteristics normally associated with poetry, it “resembles” poetry. Using parallel structures for effect is one of them (We’ll talk about it later).