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| Home > Regional Literature > Punjabi Literature > Poetry in Punjabi Literature
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| | Poetry in Punjabi Literature
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Bhai Vir Singh - (1872-1957)
The father of modern Punjabi literature, he single handed brought a renaissance of Punjabi poetry. He was the first to use blank verse form in poetry and was the author of numerous novels, plays and poetry collections. He was a pioneer in starting the first Punjabi daily newspaper, the winner of many literary awards and a grand personality. He gave Punjabi verse a sophistication and new expression.
Amrita Pritam - (born 1917)
A household name in the sphere of poetry, her single poem Aj Akhan Waris Shah noo brought her fame across both sides of Punjab. It refers to the situation after partition of India in 1947 when thousands of people were uprooted from their homes, murdered, raped and blood flew everywhere.
She was chosen as poetess of the millennium in India and has won the Sahitya Akademi award for an outstanding collection of poetry, Sunehray. She has published 24 novels, 15 collections of short stories and numerous other anthologies. Her work has been translated into 21 Indian languages, as well as English, Albanian, Bulgarian, Russian, French, Polish and Spanish. Her poetry is a wonderful blend of earthiness and psychic sophistication. A lyrical quality derived from Sufi and Sikh traditions with an undercurrent of feminism.
Shiv Kumar Batalvi - (1936 -1973)
A bohemian poet of Punjab who drove himself to an early death through drink and epilepsy. His verse play Loona won him the Sahitya Akedmi award, which brought to light a new interpretation of legend of Pooran Bhagat in modern media. He expressed his inner sufferings through brilliant lyrics. Like John Keats, he was `half in love with the easeful death`.
He was uprooted from his native land by traumatic happenings of the partition of India in 1947, which affected his psyche deeply as a source of melancholy and fearful sorrow, but he never expressed it in his early poetry. He was only able to express it at the end of his poetic career. Dudh da Katal or the murder of milk, which signifies murder of the milk of his mother, the mother Punjab, who was murdered by its division.
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