Aug 02 2025 to Aug 03 2025 10:30 a.m.

Where

Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha

XJCV+WRR, Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha Purandara Bhavana, 8th Main Rd, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560008 560008

Event Description

Bengaluru Poetry Festival (BPF), the city’s first festival dedicated to poetry, is back. – 10.30 AM to 8 PM – both days

Over 5000 poetry lovers have attended each of the 7 physical editions of the two-day festival from 2016 to 2019 and from 2022-2024.

This year, building on the surprise hit of our first eight years, we plan on winning more of your love. We have put together a melodious schedule once more and hope to see each one of you back again. All the usuals will be here, along with some highly unusuals: poets across all languages, word palettes from all over the world and exclusive performances in verse and song. Poets new and old, lyricists, singers, performers, musicians… prepare yourself for all rhyme and reason.

The 9 th edition of Bengaluru Poetry Festival is scheduled to be held on the 2nd and 3rd of August 2025 at Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha. The festival has once again attracted a number of internationally recognized poets and artistes who have confirmed their participation, and the stage is set for another weekend of incredible poetry performances for literary connoisseurs of Bangalore.

The previous editions of the BPF have seen performances, readings, discussions and debates by eminent poets and performers such as Gulzar, Shubha Mudgal, Shankar Mahadevan, Ila Arun, Javed Akhtar, Deepti Naval, Rekha Bhardwaj, Shabana Azmi, Jayanta Mahapatra, Usha Uthup, Kavita Seth, Dr. Chandrashekhar Kambar, Mamang Dai, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Sadhguru, Perumal Murugan, TM Krishna and many others.

Subodh and Lakshmi, the founders of Atta Galatta - the Bookstore and Events Space, realized that while poetry as a form of self-expression was gaining immense popularity, and Indian poets and poetry were increasingly being recognized the world over, there were limited opportunities available for poets within the existing literary festival platforms.

So they, along with a core team of poets and poetry lovers, conceptualized BPF as a celebration of all things poetry. The festival aims to provide a space for verse to be engaged with — by poets, readers, performers and the audience — across forms, formats and languages. The festival will include poetry performances, talks on poetry and opportunities to learn through workshops and interactive sessions.

The Festival Team

Shinie Antony – Festival Director

Shinie Antony has written the novellas The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Can't, and Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith, which won the Wise Owl Prize for fiction 2025. She has compiled the anthologies Hell Hath No Fury, Boo, Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, and co-edited The Art of Holding On, Letting Go. Her story A Dog’s Death won the Commonwealth Short Story Asia prize in 2002. She is also the founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival.

Akhila Krishnamurthy

Akhila Krishnamurthy is a freelance journalist and the founder of Aalaap, a boutique arts management company based in Chennai. Akhila founded Aalaap after a 15-year career in journalism where she worked across leading publications in India, including The Times of India where she was the Editor of all the supplements. As a freelance writer, Akhila has contributed essays and features across The Hindu, the India Today Group, Outlook, Tehelka, Open, Elle and Harper's Bazaar.

Amruta Dongray

Armed with a Master’s degree in Sociology from the Bombay University, Amruta Dongray worked in the tourism industry for eight years. She considers herself an ‘accidental poet’. She started writing poetry in 2010. Her first book PASTPRESENT saw its release in 2013. Her second book is Three Halves was launched in 2018.

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury is a poet and writer with three books to her credit - Where Even the Present is Ancient: Benaras (poetry) and Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen: Bengali Cinema’s First Couple (nonfiction), the latter shortlisted for the Crossword Award, nonfiction category in 2013. Her latest book The Hungrialists  was launched earlier this year. She is also the fiction and poetry editor of The Bengaluru Review, a literary magazine from Bengaluru.

Prashant Sankaran

Prashant Sankaran stepped off the hectic corporate treadmill after 25 years on it to mentor small entrepreneurs and serve on the advisory boards of a few not-for-profit and for-profit organisations. Currently he is the Executive Director at Interweave Consulting, a firm focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion solutions. He also dabbles in photography, performing arts and filmmaking. He is the author  of Home, a fusion between poetry and graphic novel and a children’s book Tutu Plays Hide and Seek. His works combining photography and haikus have been exhibited at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore and the Bangalore International Centre.

Shikha Saklani Malaviya

Shikha Saklani Malaviya is a poet and writer, born in the U.K. and raised in Minnesota and India. The author of Geography of Tongues, she is also the co-founder of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, a literary press. She calls both the San Francisco Bay area and Bengaluru home. Her latest book, “Anandibai Joshee – A Life In Poems” was released in 2023

Sourav Roy

Sourav is a Hindi poet, translator and educator. Born and brought up in Jharkhand, he pursued a bachelor’s degree in engineering from MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore; and worked as a programmer at an MNC. This was followed by a three-year year stint as a journalist and editor at a reputed media company. Since then, he has worked as a visiting faculty at Azim Premji University and NIFT Bengaluru. He is also the founding editor of Bengaluru Review magazine, and currently works as a educator at Head Start Educational Academy.

His published books include Yayavar (Collection of poems), Karnakavita (Editor: Anthology of Hindi-Urdu poetry from Bengaluru), Soho Mein Marx (Translator: Three Plays by Howard Zinn), and Os Ki Prithvi (Translation of Japanese Haiku)

Vikram Sridhar

Vikram Sridhar is a Performance Storyteller and Theatre Practitioner. His stories, performances and workshops for children, adults and families are rooted in heritage, ecology and folklore deeply inspired from various communities of the soil. Based in Chennai and Bangalore, he has travelled the country extensively with his desi way of storytelling.  

Subodh Sankar and Lakshmi Subodh

Subodh and Lakshmi are co-founders of Atta Galatta, a Bengaluru-based bookstore with a focus on Indian, vernacular writing and is a venue for literary, art and cultural events.

Since its inception 12 years ago, the bookstore has hosted over 2500 events, including book launches, poetry readings, theatre performances, art shows, screenings, storytelling sessions and workshops.

The bookstore has partnered with festivals such as the Bangalore Literature Festival and the Lekhana Writers Festival as the official bookstore.

Atta Galatta has partnered with the Bangalore Literature Festival to present The Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. Instituted in 2015, the annual awards are presented under 8 categories of Fiction (English), Non-Fiction (English), Popular Choice, Best Cover Design and 4 categories for children.

BPF 2025

The lineup for 2025 includes marquee names, most attending the festival for the first time.

●        Namma Bengaluru is all set to welcome the biggest names in poetry including Gagan Gill, Swanand Kirkire, Jeet Thayil and young poets like Parwati Tirkey- the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2025.

●       Stars of the musical world and masters of lyrics will be setting the stage on fire, with Dastangoi Danish Husain, singer Justh (writer and performer of the viral hit “Chor”) carnatic maestro Sikkil Gurucharan, singer-songwriter Suman Sridhar (the voice behind  hits like Muskaanein Jhooti Hai) and Tamil lyricist and screenwriter Madhan Karky.

●       This year we will host multiple people from the world of film, who also write poetry like veteran actress Sandhya Mridul, singer and actress Ramya Nambessan, directors Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Devashish Makhija.

●       Regional poetry will be represented by voices from Kerala, Mizoram, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and more. Bangalore based Mizo poet Malsawmi Jacob is among those presenting their works in a variety of languages.

●       Talks on the works of legends like Kishore Kumar and Aravind Gigoo will be presented by experts on their works.

●       Day 2 will  conclude with a free performance by a legend of the Baul tradition, folk singer Parvathy Baul

●       The festival will have an influx of poets from around the world, including Sri Lankan poet Shirani Rajapakse, American writer and poet Claudia Keelan, Singaporean poet and translator Daryl Lim Wie Jie and Emirati poets Ali AlMaazmi and Amal Al Sahlawi.

●       The festival will feature a full children’s lineup as well, focusing on storytelling, author interactions, activities and more centered around literature, creativity and fun (Register now on BookMyShow).

For the first time, the festival is instituting a prize for young unpublished poets to be announced on the 3rd of August. The UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship is instituted in remembrance of Utkarsh Verma by his mother Dr. Neena Verma, in association with the Bengaluru Poetry Festival. A poet at heart, a scientist in mind, a naturalist in spirit, and a devoted server of the cause of inclusive learning, Utkarsh transcended the mortal realm, and this Fellowship is a missionary endeavour to honour and support young unpublished poets in deepening their understanding and craft for poetry.

The fellowship will comprise the following:
●       Winning Citation, cash prize of INR 24,000/-, and membership to the ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship Cohort For 2025’ for the selected poet who will be recognised as ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellow 2025’.

●       Appreciation letter and membership to the ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship Cohort For 2025’ for five honourable mention poets as will be selected by the Jury.

●       The Four-months long ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ program extended to the cohort of six selected above. The said Fellowship program will comprise of 6 months of joint learning, culminating in the publication of chapbook by Atta Galatta Books and Publishers, comprising 4 poems each (including two winning poems) written by the six cohort members.

●       The ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellowship’ award will be presented at the Bengaluru Poetry Festival. The selected ‘UTKARSH Poetry Fellow’ will be invited to read one winning poem at the Festival.

Venue: Sangeetha Sabha Purandara Bhavana, 8th Main Rd, 8th cross, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bengaluru- 560008

For info contact: Subodh 98450 19705 or visit www.bengalurupoetryfestival.org for registrations.

Timing: 10.30 AM to 8 PM

Date: August 2nd and 3rd 2025

Entry is free to the festival