Rabbi Shergill, Manoj Muntashir to headline 6th Delhi Poetry Festival

New Delhi: Populer singers and poets Rabbi Shergill, Madan Gopal Singh, Manoj Muntashir and Surjit Patar will be among those conversing about poetry, verses and Sufism at the upcoming Delhi Poetry Festival here.

The sixth edition of the Delhi Poetry Festival will begin here on December 10 at India Habitat Centre.

This year the multilingual festival will celebrate poetry in four languages - Hindi, English, Punjabi and Urdu with a special focus on Sufi poet Waris Shah to commemorate his 300th birth year.

The two-day festival will see discussions on poetry, politics, history, music and musical performances.

In its series titled "Conversation & Verses", the Delhi Poetry Festival will feature lyricist and poet, Muntashir in conversation with filmmaker Brahmanand Singh to explore the nuances of poetry and songwriting.

Playwright and danstango Danish Iqbal will present some lesser-explored nuances of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poetry.

"I believe poetry is the voice of change. It is both evolving as well as enlightening. It is immersive and substantive. Society today needs poetry to calm the turmoil that’s threatening to disrupt it. Poetry does just that," founder and festival director Dolly Singh said in a statement.

A session titled "The Melting Pot" will have a recitation of poetry in various regional languages, including Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri and Tamil.

Doodler Sushil Bhasin will bring the art of doodling in the context of poetry writing during the experimental session "Doodle-an-Emotion", the organisers said. Writer and poets including Navtej Sarna, Keki Daruwalla, Rakhshanda Jalil, Ramesh Inder Singh, Sakoon Singh, Nirupama Dutt, Urvashi Butalia, and Sukrita Paul Kumar will also take part in conversations on various topics.

The poetry festival will conclude on December 11.