Lampshade Writers is the brainchild of Nivedita Narsapuram of Hyderabad who started the initiative as an online forum three years ago during the Covid pandemic. Since then, many young and old poetry lovers from across India and overseas have joined the group.

Around twenty young poets and poetry lovers from Kolkata and Hyderabad came together to recite their poems based on the pre-determined theme of Earth and Sky.

The Kolkata debut session witnessed the presence of avid poetry lovers, mostly young ladies. Lampshade Writers envisions bringing even more people together and giving wings to words in the form of poetry.

“I had this idea back in 2020 amid the raging pandemic to create Lampshade Writers - a forum where people from all over the world could share poems and interact with one another at the same time. The model is based on the thriving reading and writing groups in Milwaukee, which I had come across during my stay in the United States,” said Nivedita.

“Lampshade Writers has already established a strong base and each day new poetry lovers, wordsmiths and creative thinkers are joining us. They bring with them a whiff of freshness and uniqueness which adds a lot of value to our initiative,” said Shrey Verma Rodricks from Hyderabad.

In 2021, Surela Chakraborty and Ananya Sarkar from Kolkata joined the core team at Lampshade and helped Nivedita take things forward.

“What began as a virtual initiative soon turned into real poetry sessions in Hyderabad with poetry lovers from Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and other cities attending the sessions. The first successful session in Kolkata sets the pace for more such events to come,” said Ananya Sarkar, a core member of Lampshade Writers.

“This first poetry session in Kolkata was a morale booster and some of the poems recited evoked intense emotions which electrified the atmosphere and invigorated the young poets. The poems were greatly appreciated and the session opened up to themes beyond the Earth and Sky,” said Surela Chakraborty, a core member of Lampshade Writers.

Lampshade Writers has diversified its content to include learning sessions on various aspects of poetry and also featured blogs (lampshadewriters.blogspot.com) on literary movements, and folk arts as a medium of storytelling.

It made collaborations with other creative and like-minded individuals to nurture a holistic one-stop platform for wordsmiths interested in exploring more.