Fugitive Poem: Bharat Bhawan Archive, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and World Poetry

Abstract This article examines five documents from the Vagarth poetry archive at Bharat Bhawan, a cultural centre in Bhopal, India, situating the archive in its worldly aspirations and local contradictions. Using the event of World Poetry Festival, 1989, as a landmark moment that left tangible traces in the archive, the article studies five intermedial poetry pages from Arun Kolatkar (India), Nicanor Parra (Chile), Miroslav Holub (Czechoslovakia), Vasko Popa (Yugoslavia), and Gabriel Okara (Nigeria). These pages were submitted to the archive, perhaps as testimonials or souvenirs, in addition to these poets’ participation at the Festival. Notably, the Festival consciously invited poets from across the factions of the Cold War, including poets from the supposedly neutral Non-Aligned countries, such as India itself. Also intertwined with the Festival and these documents is the history of the Bhopal industrial disaster (1984), which was made visible as a relief-seeking anti-government protest march at the site of the Festival. This article is a short speculative as well as material analysis of the archival space as it unfolds in this singular convergence between industrial disaster, Cold War politics, and world poetry.