Individuals who have talent of creative writing are gifted or a cursed? Most of the individuals in question who happen to be poets, suffer from a grandiose illusion that they are gifted since they believe in the ancient Greek philosophical notion that they are driven by divine madness.

It’s a half truth: of course they are driven by madness but madness does not necessarily have divine origins if we look around. Poets who are literally innumerable cannot be blessed or afflicted by divine madness. Nature can’t be that generous.

The sheer number is overwhelming. The situation can be described with a quirky sense of humour in Punjabi idiom: you will find a poet underneath each brick if you pluck it.

If you have doubt, organise a public poetry recital (mushaira). You will have poets in hundreds, even in thousands in your locality bending over backward to be stars of the event. They will definitely be greater in number than the audience and you will have in- your- face action thriller.

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Once a poet is on the stage, he somehow loses sense of time. He will not cease reciting his kitschy stuff unless he is snubbed or physically dragged down. Suffering such a disgrace happily shows the disturbing sign of a malady afflicting our poets.

If a poet can stomach such a social disgrace just to satiate his lust for reciting his verses in public, one can imagine what he would do to get his poetry published.

In order to be recognised as a serious poet one has to have some books of poetry published. Printed word somehow carries prestige in a society that is not very literate. It seems to be endowed with arcane power that can buy intellectual respectability for the author.

Internal strength of printed stuff and ensuing intellectual respectability may be two different things.

Sachal Sarmast, the poet and mystic, laments the waste of the paper on which a poet writes dead words: “haye haye way yaara, kaghaz ki toi kaara (What a pity my friend! You did nothing but blackened the paper)”.

But poets, obviously not all, can be happy with the dots and smudges on the paper that carry their names. Composing poetry seems funny in our contemporary socio-cultural context; the process of publishing of it is funnier.

Publishers, big and small, are hardly interested in poetry. The reason is simple. Who will buy it? There are no buyers or takers of poetry. Publishers are interested in doing business. How can they produce a commodity that does not sell?

So-called creative expression is as much subject to the manipulation of market forces as the commodities produced purely for profit making. One can assert at the risk of annoying poets that poetry in fact has become an anachronism.

But the poets are sentimental lot, ready to be willing victims of self-aggrandisement. When faced with the reality of not being recognised or appreciated, they tend to sing saccharine songs laced with self-pity.

They love to present themselves as suffering heroes, unacknowledged and unsung in a world indifferent to the finer things of life. Whatever the odds, they do not cease to struggle to prove their cultural and social worth.

Times are such that to prove their worth poets must have publications to their credit. But publishers are loath to bring out books of poetry. So what is the way out?

The smart or worldly wise among poets write paeans of praise to the power-wielding individuals and public and private institutions which in return provide them with patronage.

Apart from paying them financially, the patrons ensure to make public and private funding available to their favourite poets so that they get their books published. The situation opens a new vista for opportunities to be availed by a poet provided he is willing to pay the price; making the established order a little more palatable through the lyricism of his poetry.

The poets who are defiant or not well-connected with the echelons of power are compelled to raise funds for the publication of their books on their own.

They must have two things before approaching the publishers; poetry and funds. Publishers will happily oblige a poet by bringing out his book of verses if he not only bears the cost but also pays him the ‘service charges’ for agreeing to manage the publication.

Poet pays and publisher publishes. A mutually beneficial deal indeed! Not really. It’s more beneficial for the publisher who promises to print five hundred copies but actually prints not more than three hundred copies which he hands over to the poet if and when demanded.

Usually a large number of copies gather dust in a dark dank store of the publishing house. The poet doesn’t need more than a few dozen. The list of his friends is not usually long.

Moral of the story: poetry is almost dead and it’s being kept alive by poets in a tent made of paper that may be blown away any time by the gusty winds of change.

In the past it was people who by loving and experiencing poetry made it an enduring creative expression. In the face of emerging new mediums of expression will poetry survive is the question self-absorbed poets are not ready to face.