DKM PRIZE 2021

CONTEST CLOSED FOR THIS YEAR

DEEPANKAR KHIWANI MEMORIAL PRIZE 2021

by The Quarantine Train

WINNERS

Announced on 30 April 2021 

Kunjana Parashar – First Prize
Kunjana Parashar’s poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Indian Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, SWWIM Every Day, The Bombay Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Toto Funds the Arts Prize for poetry, 2021, and is a Best of the Net nominee. She lives in Mumbai.

The jury commends her work for the quality of attention that she brings to the personal and the quotidian — elevating them to the level of the exalted. With great precision and economy, her poems explore new and surprising registers of language. They bring to surface the minute ecological phenomena that surround us and even seemingly technical terms are imbued with lyricism and emotional insight.

Fathima Zahra – Second Prize
Fathima Zahra is a poet and performer currently based in England. She has been featured across BBC World News, The New Indian Express and Young Poets Network. Her debut pamphlet is forthcoming with ignition press (August 2021).

The jury commends her for poems that dwell on loss and intimacy in ways that affect the readers with marked immediacy. The intertwining personal and social threads are handled delicately, making the experience simultaneously insightful and heartfelt. Honest reflections on human relationships are shot through with currents of history, conflict, and displacement.

Sandip Baidya – Third Prize
Sandip Baidya is a poet and fiction writer. He’s pursuing an engineering degree from G.B Pant Govt. Engineering college, New Delhi, India. His work can be found in Multitudes and Beyond The Panorama. He is an alumnus of the International Writing Program’s Summer Institute, 2019. He doodles a lot because he’s obsessed with shapes.

The jury commends him for the novel ways in which his poems engage with oft-repeated ideas of displacement and belonging. The language is witty, suggestive, and allows for possibilities beyond the straight meaning of words. These poems dare to trip over the taut rope that holds together the ‘correctness’ of language.

PRIZE CEREMONY

May 8, 2021; 7.30 pm—9.30 pm IST

7.30 pm: Welcome Address

7.35 pm: Arjun Rajendran on Deepankar Khiwani 

7.40 pm: Readings of Deepankar Khiwani’s poems 

7.50 pm: Overview of the Adjudication Process 

7.55 pm: Readings by Shortlisted Poets 

8.05 pm: DKM Prize Address by Arundhathi Subramaniam 

8.25 pm: Prize Announcement

8.30 pm: Readings by the Prize Winners 

9.00 pm: Vote of Thanks 

9.05 pm: Open House

Guest of Honour
Arundhathi Subramaniam is the award-winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose, most recently Love Without a Story (2019), described as ‘a breathtaking and heartwarming book’ (Poetry Book Society Bulletin) by ‘a unique poet of our times’ (Indian Literature). Her previous collection, When God is a Traveller, won the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020, and was the Season Choice of the Poetry Book Society, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She has written extensively on culture and spirituality, and has worked over the years as poetry editor, cultural curator and critic. As editor, her most recent book is the Penguin anthology of sacred poetry, Eating God. Widely translated and anthologised, her other awards and fellowships include the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women’s Award for Literature, the Il Ceppo Prize in Italy, the Zee Indian Women Award for Literature, the Mystic Kalinga award, among others. She lives between Mumbai, Chennai, and New York.

VIEW THE EVENT VIDEO

SHORTLIST

Announced on 26 April 2021 

  • Fathima Zahra
  • Kunjana Parashar
  • Paresh Tiwari
  • Sandip Baidya
  • Vinita Agrawal
  • Zoya Chadha

 

LONGLIST

Announced on 22 April 2021 

  • Fathima Zahra
  • Huzaifa Pandit
  • Kunjana Parashar
  • Paresh Tiwari
  • Purbasha Roy
  • Sandip Baidya
  • Srividya Sivakumar
  • Trishita Das
  • Vinita Agrawal
  • Zoya Chadha

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

  1. Submissions should be sent to dkprize@thequarantinetrain.com between September 15, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
  2. Each entry should consist of 3-5 original and unpublished poems in English in a single document (doc or docx). Each poem should not exceed 40 lines. Personal blogs and social media posts will not be considered as published if removed from public access upon submission.
  3. Only one entry per individual is allowed. No simultaneous submissions. No translations. No revisions after submission.
  4. No identifying information should appear on the submissions.
  5. The covering email should have the subject line: Submission_YOUR NAME. The email body should also carry a brief bio of under 100 words and a proof of age and nationality (Driver’s License, Aadhar, Voter ID, etc.).
  6. Only Indian nationals are eligible to enter. The poet should be 18 years of age or above on January 1, 2021.
  7. Current or former TQT members and their close relatives are ineligible to participate.
  8. One winner and two runners-up will be chosen. Cash awards of INR 15000, 10000, and 5000 will go to the first, second, and third prize winners respectively. All finalists will receive a one-year TQT membership and a certificate.
  9. There is no entry fee.
  10. All submissions will be read blindly by a panel of TQT members. Decisions made by TQT will be final.
  11. Upon submission, you agree that your poems, if selected for the Prize, can be used by TQT on promotional materials, blogs, or social media.
  12. Queries can also be directed to dkprize@thequarantinetrain.com
  13. The Prize is scheduled to be announced on April 30, 2021.