Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

In our search for wider representation to become a truly diverse and contemporary global poetry community, we are now focusing on our latest initiative, the Poetry of India Collection. Our ‘Poetry of India’ project will bring together a carefully curated list of contemporary poets from the Indian subcontinent, who define the vast and diverse landscape of modern-day post-Independence India from across the 20th century to the present day.

From ‘The Beginning’

“Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?” the baby asked its mother.

She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast,– “You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.

You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then.

When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it.

Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise.

Heaven’s first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world’s life, and at last you have stranded on my heart.

As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.

For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world’s treasure in these slender arms of mine?”

As part of this new project we’re looking for volunteers to join us as Web Researchers, Transcribers and Biographers. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, click here to learn more.

Forthcoming in our ‘Poetry of India’ collection. This is a recording of Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘The Beginning’ from a series of readings from The Crescent Moon.