The men of verse

Jerry Pinto. Pic/Vinit Bhatt

Somewhere in the middle of the title poem from his recently published poetry collection, I Want A Poem (Speaking Tiger), the multi-hyphenate writer Jerry Pinto says: "I want a poem like an animal. You should be able to eat it. Or domesticate it. You should be able to befriend it. Or behead it."

Ranjit Hoskote. Pic/Nancy Adajania

In another collection, by another veteran, Ranjit Hoskote, who shares the same love for verse, we are introduced to the narrator, Hunchprose whom he names his book after. Hunchprose - a hark back to Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - offers a sharp defence for his poetry, against the stronger and more "murderous" prose rivals.

"Call me Hunchpraise. I bend over my inkdrift words.
And when I spring back up I sting."

One might see stark contrasts in what the two poets hope for their poetry to do - where Pinto sees it as a source of nourishment and rage, Hoskote draws attention to its underrated influence. And yet, there's very little difference. The writers remind you that you mustn't disregard the poem, today or ever.

Hoskote's Hunchprose (Penguin Hamish Hamilton) is a rare treat that deftly moves from the quotidian observations - a ‘rainbow neck' pigeon tapping on the wrong side of a glass on a grey, gloomy day - to drawing from legends and history to paint a vivid portrait of people and our dystopian times. Our personal favourite is Sidi Mubarak Bombay (1820-1885), a prose poem, which also opens his collection.

Sidi, we learn is a Zanzibari slave, who worked in 19th-century Bombay, only to return home, after his "seth" as a dying instruction, demands that he be freed. He goes on to become a guide for explorers, but the smell and sights of Bombay continue to haunt him:

"‘Bombil, surmai, bangda, rawas.'

The masala-thick pungency of one fish after another after another would settle on my tongue.

My neighbours must have thought I was chanting spells."

Pinto, on the other hand, is a storyteller, even in rhyme and meter, and that's the gift of his prose and verse - it just keeps giving. He dips into the personal, the familial, and the ordinariness of daily life, to write his verse. We loved Today My Mother is in the Audience; hidden within the lines is a charming story of the writer's late mum, blushing with pride, even in her absence, when "you [the audience] clap or laugh". "It embarrasses me, that smile, her clear uninflected enjoyment of any small success," he writes. Or take, Will You Miss Me? a love letter to a former lover, inspired from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's gentle sonnet, How do I love thee?" We must not forget though to mention the line that most amused us, "You have some cheek. I will miss that cheek." Isn't that what we most remember about those heart breakers?

What: I Want A Poem by Jerry Pinto (Speaking Tiger)
For: Rs 299
Where: amazon.in

What: Hunchprose by Ranjit Hoskote (Penguin Hamish Hamilton)
For: Rs 499
Where: amazon.in