For acclaimed author and poet Jerry Pinto, one of the key experiences that shaped his literary life was the discourses he undertook in his twenties in meetings of like-minded bards and thinkers known as the Poetry Circle in Mumbai.
“This was many years ago. But when Menka Shivdasani, R Raj Rao, Akil Contractor and Nitin Mukadam came together to create the Poetry Circle, it was really significant for people like us. For ten years, we sat and talked about poetry. That was such a formative experience. Usually, literary festivals are dominated by fiction and non-fiction. Big names like Amitav Ghosh and Manu S Pillai will come, and they will receive a packed hall. Poets don’t get that unless you’re coming from a film background. So poets have to learn to support each other because nobody else will,” shares Pinto, who penned the poetry collection Asylum and Other Poems, when we met him at the recently-concluded Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
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