The Urban Word, a literary organisation in the United States that provides platform to young writers to showcase and develop their talents and is credited for the launch of poetic careers of many a young poet in the country through its youth poet laureate programmes, is all set to extend its poet programme to Pakistan by identifying, nurturing and celebrating young poets in the country.
American poet and literary enthusiast Michael Cirelli, whose one of the four poetry volumes was declared a bestseller by the New York Times, shared details of the Pakistan Youth Laureate Programme to begin next year with the assistance of the US Embassy at a talk at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa).
The programme, whose details can be found at www.nationalpoem.org, will seek poetry submissions in English and Urdu from young poets of Pakistan having ages between 16 and 25 years. In the first phase, 20 of those poems would be selected and published in an anthology, following which their respective poets would be offered training sessions and workshops to help them polish their craft.
The programme will culminate with the announcement of two youth poet laureates of the country — one each for English and Urdu.Cirelli, who has been a founding member of the Urban Word as well as the founder of the youth poet laureate programme that was first held in New York, had an interesting story to tell about his literary journey.He said he grew up in a restaurant where his father was a cook and his mother a waitress.
He himself did the dishwashing job at the restaurant and had no literary background when all of a sudden he felt the joy of poetry while visiting a poetry slam, which could be imagined as a sort of Mushairah.
