KATHMANDU, April 30: With the aim of making the publishing market more dynamic, Nepalaya is going to publish Nepali poems online which will be called 'Nepalaya E-Poetry'. Nepalaya has signed a cooperation agreement with famous poet Shravan Mukharung, who will also be its coordinator and curator, for the new initiative. Through this platform, poet Mukharung will present his own as well as various other old poets' unpublished new creations .
The poems, which will be made public on a weekly basis, will be available directly on the phone and computer of the audiences after paying the specified fee through the Nepalaya page. There will be an arrangement to read every poem and also listen to the recitation of the poem in the original voice of the poet.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made us feel that our social activities and freedom of movement are being threatened. Like all other fields, it has affected publishers and readers. Elaborating on the concept of Nepalaya e-poetry, Kiran Krishna Shrestha of Nepalaya said, "Art and literature have served as a means of comforting us in difficult times. As we confined ourselves to the perimeter of the quarantine, we found that a number of people were able to satisfy their literary appetite through literary diets available online. Poets and artists also shared their creations easily. The public participation and interest seen in those sessions were encouraging. Although the creation that was published and disseminated in this way served as a bridge between the creator and the reader-listener, it also highlighted an urgent need for business management."
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Shrestha further added that the concept of e-poetry is the commercial bridge that seeks to connect poets with the reader in a commercially direct way.
Poet Shravan Mukharung, the curator and coordinator of e-poetry, had also launched a live session titled 'Quarantine Poetry' on his Facebook page during the lockdown period. Commenting on the 'E-poetry' based on that experience, Mukharung said that this situation is not due to the lack of attraction of readers towards good poetry. “Instead, we are unable to commercialize the work of writing and publishing poetry. I am hopeful that such a new dimension of publishing will give a new opportunity to the culture of poetry writing and reading,” he said. "E-poetry will surely bring dignity and respect to the poets and bring them to the readers who want to become informed and will also reach the readers who are willing to buy to read it."
The launch of 'E-Poetry' is scheduled to start from Saturday. Coincidentally, as today is the day to see mother's face(Amma ko mukh Herne din), as the first poem of the series, poet Shravan Mukharung recited the famous poem titled 'Mother' by poet Gopal Prasad Rimal as a sign of respect and dedication towards mothers and elders. “In this series, we will now be able to read unpublished new works of Nepali language poets on a weekly basis and quench our poetic literary thirst through those readings,” he said.
In the first month, readers and listeners will be able to read and listen to the poems for free by registering their names. After that, the free reading quota will be limited to one poem per month and those who want to read and listen to all the poems will have to become annual subscribers. "This is our first attempt to commercialize the genre of poetry. We understand the absolute fact that it can be challenging to turn the free of charge available online poetry into a paid reading culture among various online audiences." Kiran Shrestha said. "E-Poetry has been launched with a belief that this challenge can be turned into an opportunity. I am confident that this campaign will be supported by conscious readers who like poetry by becoming an annual subscriber," he added.
The e-poetry that has been made public can be found through the Nepali page or through this link: https://publicationnepalaya.com/ekavita/.
The technical development and management of this work has been done by many.com (www.thuprai.com). There is also provision to those who have demonstrated their technical proficiency through the E-book app to manage the E-poetry so that they can read and listen from their E-book app.
Each poem available in E-poetry will cost Rs.15 and there is also an arrangement of a discount of Rs 525 for its annual subscribers. Similarly, readers from abroad are provided with an annual subscription at $5.
