March 21 is celebrated annually as World Poetry Day and we thought we’d take a look at all the fiery feminist poets of India. We realised no one has made a list of popular and powerful feminist poets of India, so we went ahead and made one. These seven feminist Poets have spoken to many through their poetry and had many stand up and take notice of the feminist movement and femininity. We have included both contemporary poets and poets of the days gone by. So here are the seven Indian Feminist Poets and some bits of their feminist poetry who put fire in people’s hearts through words.
The list is not an exhaustive list (for we’re humans) and are always looking for your suggestions. Add the poets we missed in the comments section.
Tishani Doshi, Uddipana Goswami, Anindita Sengupta, Sharanya Manivannan, Monica Mody, Nitoo Das, Nabina Das, Purvi Shah, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Mani Rao, and these are just some 21st century ones I’m using for my PhD. Meena too, of course. And what about Suniti Namjoshi, Ruth Vanita, menka Shivdasani, mamta Kalia, Eunice de Souza, Imtiaz Dharker, Sujata Bhatt, Kamala Das too of course, there are soooo many, how can you possibly name so few!!! Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sampurna Chattarji. and all tehse have proper collection published. I’m not sure if rupi kaur and jayaprabha do.
thanks for the names. i am glad that i read your comment. fortunately i am also starting my PhD thesis on Indian feminist poetry. could you please suggest me some good starting points as there is a plethora of writers and i am kinda lost in the middle. just some writers and works to begin with. hope i am not being a load to you. thanks.
Rupi Kaur is a brilliant poet.
okay, thanks for the lead. have heard of her, of course, but will look up some more.
How do you put someone as inept and ill read who manufactures this yuppy kind of wisdom disguised as poetry next to Amrita Pritam? This list is so poorly curated, any english undergrad would start barfing. The only good poets you have in this are Priya Chhabria, Kamla Das, Kamini Roy and Amrita Pritam. Sorry, girls. This one was a misfire. Get someone who actually cares about women in poetry next time, please. Terrible.
You also misspelt Meena Kandasamy’s name. One wiki search. C’mon.
Yes, Rupi Kaur is crap. I have submitted my PhD now and discovered loads more poets than what I mentioned above. If you have specific questions to ask, write to me with details of your work at shrutanne@gmail.com