You end up making enemies. That's an anthologist's curse

INTERVIEW/Jeet Thayil, author, poet and poetry editor

- SNEHA BHURA

Jeet Thayil is done editing anthologies. The poet, novelist, librettist and musician gave readers the gift of two important poetry anthologies in the past: 60 Indian Poets (Penguin, 2008) and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (Bloodaxe Books, 2008). His edited anthologies have been the go-to guide to magisterially survey the scene of Indian poetry in English after Independence.

And now with the monumental mixtape that is The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, almost running into 900 pages covering 94 poets born from 1924 to 2001, one would not be able to work up an appetite for a more sumptuous spread. Among the collection are lost and out-of-print poems by major poets alongside essays that put entire bodies of work into their cultural contexts. Understandably, the 63-year-old poet, with four collections of poems behind him, wants to go back to his own writing now. With the anthology already a bestseller, waiting to go into its third print edition a month after its release, Thayil makes poetry look like a pop star in a world where most publishers consider this genre bad business. Excerpts from an interview:

Q How did you decide on the timing of the release of this volume?