Prominent poet Mohammad Rafiq was awarded Best Poet in 2014 at the “29th Jatiya Kabita Utsab (National Poetry Festival)” which ended yesterday.
The two day long poetry festival, which began on Sunday on the Dhaka University campus, ended yesterday after the prize announcement ceremony where Rafiq’s award was announced.
The Jatiya Kabita Utsab was organised by Jatiya Kabita Parishad, which was formed on February 1 1987 for this festival. Since its debut in 1987, the organisation has been arranging the poetry festival on February 1 and 2 every year, centering on themes of contemporary culture and socio-political situation of the country.
This year’s theme was “Jago shombhabonay, jago kobitay” (rise through hopes, rise through poetry), and held poetry recitations, seminars with hundreds of prominent poets and cultural personalities – both from home and abroad.
The Bangladeshi recitation, which was ninth in line of recitation groups, was facilitated by Nirmelendu Goon.
A large number of local and foreign poets recited their poems at the festival. Foreign poets from India, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Ecuador participated, notably Ashish Sanyal and Subodh Sarkar from India, Peter Naibarg from Sweden, and Germane Drugenbrut from Belgium.
The Jatiya Kabita Parishad was founded during the military regime of 1980s under the leadership of eminent poets including Sufia Kamal, Shamsur Rahman and Faiz Ahmed with the aim of using poetry as a means to break chains. The festival notably played an important role in restoring democracy in the country by unifying the people of Bangladesh against the autocratic military regime of General Ershad.
The festival eventually became a perpetual cultural journey and, in its course, involved participation of progressive writers, journalists, painters, intellectuals as well as politicians.
The national poetry festival today has become a major annual event not only in Bangladesh, but also in South Asia.