ON THE OCCASION OF FATHERS DAY, 2020

WE BRING TO YOU

MERI KALAM – Campaign  ONE POETRY A DAY on Social Media

Starting From: 20th June, 2020 till 30th June, 2020

Father’s Day is celebrated worldwide to recognize the contribution that fathers and father figures make to the lives of their children. This day celebrates fatherhood and male parenting.

MERI KALAM is an initiative taken by the Innovation Council of Gulzar Group of Institutes along with the Instagram page @kalammeri_ (कलम मेरी | आवाज़), to promote the importance of poetry in ones life. We all know that poetry is something which instantly makes an effect on the reader’s mind. So take your pens in your hands and come join us in sharing joy with the whole world.

F-fantastic,

A-awesome,

T-terrific,

H-honorable,

E-excellent,

R-remarkable

This sums up my dad...Happy Father's Day to all you wonderful dads out there!

Guidelines for poetry Submission:

· The poetry should be maximum of 6 lines. Longer also will be accepted if the length is necessary to convey the ideas.

· Format Word /PPT / PDF any Acceptable.

· Languages allowed: English/ Hindi

· Multiple submissions are allowed.

· You have to mention your Instagram Username along with your post while sending it so that we can tag you along with the post.

· Your poetry should be relatable to the present day audience.

· If writing in Hindi then please submit in proper Hindi (Devanagari).  (Hinglish not allowed means a blend of Hindi and English, in particular a variety of English used by speakers of Hindi, characterized by frequent use of Hindi vocabulary or constructions.)

· Do mention your name and city while sending us your entries.

· Also mention there that you’re sending it for the MERI KALAM campaign

· All the entries received before 12 noon will be considered for a particular day, rest all the entries will be taken into consideration for the next day.

WHAT TO DO?

You just have to share your original poetry (max 6 lines) with us every day till the campaign is on and each day our team will select the best out of all the entries received and we’ll share it with making a post on the Instagram and Facebook pages of @iicggi as well as on @kalammeri_.

Explore Themes Suggested for Poetry Submission:-

Nature

Nature is undoubtedly one of the most commonly utilized themes of poetry in recorded history. It is due to nature’s wide-ranging connotations and the impossibility of perfectly defining it that makes it such an allusive and engaging theme. Poems in this category could speak on the natural world (as we commonly think of it: trees, mountains etc) and its beauties or dangers.

Here are a few examples of poems that clearly utilize nature as one of their main themes:

❖ Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

❖ Winter Landscape, with Rooks by Sylvia Plath

❖ Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

❖ Huge Vapours Brood above the Clifted Shore by Charlotte Smith

Aging

The most powerful literary themes are those which touch everyone. Life, death, age, these are examples of universal considerations that each person, lover of poetry or not, must contend with. Some of the most powerful poetic works consider age, and one’s an unstoppable progression towards death. That being said, no one’s experience of ageing is the same as anyone else’s. As poets from across time explore what it means to age, their various conclusions and considerations paint a picture of human nature and the fear or hope that underlies one’s living days.

Here are a few other examples that consider the theme of age from different perspectives:

❖ ‘Age’ by Philip Larkin

❖ ‘On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year’ by Lord Byron

❖ ‘You Begin’ by Margaret Atwood

❖ ‘Lullaby’ by W.H. Auden 

Desire

Speaking of universally relatable themes, desire is certainly an important one. Whether romantic, erotic or spiritual, desire poems are expansive. Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnets come to mind. The speaker in these works addresses a young man through a series of sonnets that outline his love, desire and heartache.

Some interesting examples that speak on a variety of desires include:

❖ ‘Absent from thee’ by John Wilmot 

❖ ‘To Be in Love’ by Gwendolyn Brooks

❖ ‘XII’ by Sappho

❖ ‘The Heart asks Pleasure— first’ by Emily Dickinson

Identity/Self

Writings about oneself, especially in a poetic form, were most popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although, that is not to say that they don’t exist in today’s contemporary literary world. These writers, no matter what time period they lived in, deeply considered their own place in the world, the impact (or lack thereof) they thought they were having, who they wanted to become, or any number of other contemplative self musings.

Here are a few more poems that utilize identity, or a search for one’s self, as one of their major themes:

❖ ‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath 

❖ ‘Search for My Tongue’ by Sujata Bhatt 

❖ ‘Still I Rise’  by Maya Angelou

❖ ‘To My Nine-Year-Old Self’ by Helen Dunmore 

Travel/Journeys

When one considers this wide-ranging theme, there are a number of possible subjects to keep in mind. A journey can consist of just about anything. One could be moving physically travelling from place to place, or be transforming in some significant way. The journey might be somewhere specific that can actually be listed on a map, or somewhere less tangible, such as the afterlife.

Take a look at this list of very different approaching to the theme of travelling, or embarking on a journey:

❖ ‘Travel’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

❖ ‘Postcard from a Travel Snob’ by Sophie Hannah 

❖ ‘The Road Goes Ever On’ by J.R.R. Tolkien

❖ ‘Odysseus to Telemachus’ by Joseph Brodsky

Dreams

Dreams have the potential to change the way we experience the world. Negative or positive, they are a reflection (and for some a space of inspiration) of how we live our lives. Many a poet has written about nights ruined by strange and terrible dreams. Or, days improved by thoughtful, wistful imaginings.

Here are four more poems, these speak on the importance of the dream state and the different forms it can take:

❖ ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ by Edgar Allan Poe

❖ ‘The House of Ghosts’ by Margaret Widdemer 

❖ ‘Death in the Arctic’ by Robert Service 

❖ ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats 

Celebration

In the category of celebration, there are endless reasons to be joyful among friends and family. Poets who take an interest in this theme might consider traditional holidays worth writing about, or, they might revel in a personal victory or a celebration of the self.

Here are a few more poems that delve into the theme of celebration:

❖ ‘Celebrate’ by Anna Akhmatova

❖ ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ by James Weldon Johnson

❖ ‘In Praise of My Bed’ by Meredith Holmes

Wellness/Recovery

Whether physical or mental, in our increasingly complicated and stressful contemporary world, poems about health, inside and out, are very relevant. Some poets, like Sylvia Plath, channel their own inner lives, convey their own mental health through their verse.

Other interesting poems with wellness/recovery as a major theme include:

❖ ‘The Soul Has Bandaged Moments’ by Emily Dickinson

❖‘Daddy‘ by Sylvia Plath 

❖ ‘Alone’ by Edgar Allan Poe

❖‘The Fury of Rainstorms’ by Anne Sexton

New Life/Birth

New life, whether that of spring or summer or of the human/animal variety, is powerful. This theme can be taken in several different directions, and any poet considering it will understand it differently.

Other poems on this same theme include:

❖ ‘Up-Hill’ by Christina Rossetti 

❖ ‘Morning Song’ by Sylvia Plath 

❖ ‘The Journey’ by Mary Oliver

Disappointment/Failure

Every theme on this list is going to tap into a reader’s mind, memory, and emotions in some way. But, those written in the wake of disappointment and failure are often some of the most moving. These emotions and experiences are unifying and reading the eloquent words of another human being who failed as you failed, can be therapeutic.

For a few more poems on this topic, take a look at:

❖‘Disenchantment’ by Emily Dickinson

❖ ‘Penalty’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

❖ ‘The Disappointment’ by Aphra Behn

Coming of Age

One of the most popular themes in classical and contemporary poetry. The period of one’s life in which they “come of age” or grow out of childhood into adulthood is physically, mentally and emotionally transformative. Just as with life itself, there are poems that address this period in a positive and negative light. Sometimes they are based around a single experience that sent a child from youth to adulthood other times they address a longer period in which the narrator or a character within a larger poem learns what it means to stop being a child.

Other poems on the same theme include:

❖‘We Real Cool’ by Gwendolyn Brooks

❖ ‘Auguries of Innocence’ by William Blake

❖‘Flatted Fifths’ by Langston Hughes

Submission the entries

You have to mail your entries @ kalammeri01@gmail.com

JUDGING CRITERIA

· Relevance to the theme - 50%

· Creativity/Style and Originality - 30%

· Coherence of form and structure (harmony of words, presentation) - 10%

· Clarity of imagery and language - 10%

ELIGIBILITY

• All undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers, research scholars from a recognized school, Colleges/Universities are eligible to participate in the competition. (Co-authorship is allowed)

CERTIFICATE

❖ The top 25 entries shall receive the certificate of appreciation common for both Faculty / Students.

❖ A certificate of participation shall be issued to all the participants on the successful submission.

Registration Link /Event Details

https://www.iicggi.com/events/meri-kalam-campaign-one-poetry-a-day-campaign 

Important Timeline

❖ Last date of Submission: 30th/June/2020 @ kalammeri01@gmail.com

❖ Date of Result Announcement: 1st/July/2020

Event Coordinator: Pratiyush Pathak, 8544245467, Aman Raj, 9852548360, Ashish Kumar Bhateja, 9417732687