Foreword

When I was contacted through email by the publisher Victor R. Volkman to write a foreword to this book, I didn’t have to think a minute to give the reply. Rather, I took it as a great honour as well as my duty to write something on the great poetry of my bosom elder friend, Prof. T. V. Reddy. He is not just my friend, but an elder brother and mentor. This foreword is being written when my edited book of his poetry is being printed by Authorspress, New Delhi. That book isThe Poetic Art of T. V. Reddy: New Perspectives, which contains twenty-four research articles by renowned professors, writers and research scholars.

My association with Prof. T.V. Reddy started in 2010. He was introduced to me by my friend, who is highly regarded Indian English poet, Dr. D. C. Chambial. We had several phone calls and I was much impressed by Prof. Reddy’s depth in English literature and poetry. His gentle, loving words were pleasant to the ears. As Secretary of the GIEWEC (Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics), which was established in October 2010, I invited him for the two day national level literary festival to be conducted at St. Teresa’s College, Kochi (Kerala) on 17th and 18th, 2011. Thus I met him for the first time on 16th September, 2011. Despite being a senior, established writer he talked to me and others with great humility, simplicity and gentleness. We were all very eager to listen to his invaluable talks, and reading of beautiful poems. My association with him continued more fervently, and he was unanimously elected as the President of the GIEWEC in the next general body meeting and literary festival conducted in Mumbai, in 2012. From then, he has been serving the Guild as the Honorary President.

Prof. T. V. Reddy shines like a unique star among the great contemporary Indian poets in English, and deserves a place very close to Prof. Jayanta Mahapatra, among the best English poets in the country now. It is really tragic and ironical that Prof. Reddy is less read and studied by his own compatriots than by poetry lovers abroad. The awards and honorary D.Litt. he was conferred from WAAC (San Francisco) indicate this fact. It is really surprising that Prof. Reddy’s poetry has not been included in the syllabus of schools, colleges and universities in India. His literary output is not small—twelve collections of poems, two novels, three critical books and a grammar book. And he has been publishing books from 1982. Being an English teacher, I had to teach poems of many Indian English poets at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Prof. Reddy’s poetry seems to me far superior to many poems which were taught. He, like many other contemporary Indian English poets, is a victim of dirty politics. It is not the worth that is counted very often. Same is the case with awards also. He should have been considered for the Sahitya Akademy award from the government of India.

What makes Prof. Reddy distinct from other contemporary poets is that he is a meeting point of the past and the new—conventional, structured, rhymed poetry and the present, unrhymed free verse. He started writing English poems in reaction to the outputs of some of the so-called leading English poets in the country. Rhythm in his poems is as musical as ripples of a brook. Other contemporary English poets seldom use rhymes so natural and sensible to the lines. He in fact reminds me of