LOVE IS POLITICAL, SO IS POETRY

ONCE, poetry was ink spilling spontaneously and consciously onto parchment, then wrapped in the folds of intimacy, passed hand to hand, tucked into books and kept in drawers for decades.

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Today, it is rhythm of fingertips against a glass screen typing, backspacing, editing, and posting. From quills to keyboards, poetry has evolved from private musings to public declarations, from personal journals to fierce posts.

The rolls of paper may have withered away by the ravages of time, but the verses linger even today, now carving themselves into the digital landscape -a space quite often of rebellion and solidarity. While the themes remain the same, what probably has also changed is the perspective. One of the striking shifts in contemporary poetry is the way young poets are redefining the portrayal of the timeless theme, love. Once bound by grand gestures roses, candle-lit dinners, and handwritten letters - love in poetry is now complex, raw and defiant. It is not just about devotion but about absence, struggle, identity, and self-reclamation. Love, once imagined as a fairytale ending, is now a site of questioning: Who gets to love? How do we love? Is love only between two people, or can it be found in the smallest moments? To explore this evolution, several poets and writers whose work challenges traditional ideas of romance, touch upon the facets of love poems. Their words paint a picture of love that is political, fluid, and deeply intertwined with personal and social struggles.

The new language of love