Kannan G Biography

When he was six years old he scribbled the rhymes:

“My home is my school
I sit on a stool
With no teachers to rule
I keep myself too cool

“My home is my school
Myself my teacher
So I’ll become no scholar
I’ll become no fool”

Perhaps his efforts to clothe his thoughts and sentiments with words have their beginning in these humble lines. When he was around 10 years of age he sent a poem to the children’s magazine “Twinkle”. In return, he received a post card from its editor the well known “Uncle Pai” stating his inability to accept the poem as “Twinkle” had then no space for poetry. But he had further added that “Poets are not made overnight. But you seem to be a budding poet. Keep writing. Best wishes.” That served him as a motivation and he kept the flame burning. Years later when he was 20 years old a poem of his appeared in print for the first time – in the “Youthfully Yours” page of the newspaper “Indian Express”. That served as an inspiration for his family members, especially his sisters, and his eldest sister started salvaging the poems he would sometimes scribble on paper and carelessly throw away. By then he had grown up enough not to have any interest in things such as saving his writings, publishing etc. He was more concerned with exploring the different facets of Life that now posed before him great adversities and innumerable challenges.

Having been disabled by paralysis of both lower limbs (since when he was one and a half years old) life had gifted him its own extra share of trails and tribulations. So, fortunately, somewhere up the way, he lost all interest on himself and even as a child, began to become worried more by the sufferings of others than by that of himself. Before he crossed his teenage he knew from somewhere deep within him that he could find satisfaction in life only by pursuing something like social work. But the odds were all always ranged against him. But only that he was not that willing ever to give in (see some of his earlier poems) .

From around four hundred of his poems that had been salvaged and preserved by his sister over the years (after abandoning a chunk of them, most of them for their too personal elements and identical themes} he posted a composite selection of around a hundred poems in PoemHunter.com, starting February 2010.

These poems speak of many things ranging from the cries of personal emotions to empathetic heart-beats of others, from some miseries and injustices he saw around to some messages he had luckily gathered, from some philosophical musings on life to some mundane situations that he had come across, from the agonies and disasters that plague life to the unflinching optimism that he ever cherishes. He says: “If not for the love and invaluable support of my mother I would never have been alive to pen these poems. If not for the dedication of my eldest sister these poems would never have survived to see the light of the day. If not for the constant inspiration and encouragement from my niece Anjana (14 years old in 2010) I would never have bothered to present these poems before you now.”

Subsequently he started posting here hundreds of his new poems. Some of them earned very encouraging comments from many of his readers and fellow-poets too. For quite some time in 2011, he was fortunate to be among the top 500 poets in PoemHunter.com. On the 4th of September 2011, he was, ranked 37th in the list of the ‘Top 500 Poets’ of the site. In early 2013, except for 21 poems on Baba Amte, he withdrew all his other poems from this site.

His poems deal mainly with life in its varied hues and dimensions. They are more often empathetic and socially inclined. They are reflections of his thoughts and feelings which are mostly of a compassionate, positive and philosophic nature. The voice, style and structure of his poems are generally determined by the theme of the poems, the time of writing and the emotions involved. He pens structured poems as well as free verse. By and large, his poems are lucid, straight-forward and easy to understand. He has also written hundreds of self-styled, three-liner, micro-poems called Laikus, on varied subjects.