What is termed as Indo-Anglian poetry has been having a long innings with P. Lai’s Writers’ Workshop acting the role of a midwife, as it were, for a whole lot of poets, good, bad and indiffe¬rent during the last 30 years. The Illustrated Weekly of India during the editorship of C.R. (Shaun) Mandy used to pub¬lish a lot of verse. The editors who succeeded him had diffe¬rent tastes and poetry was given low priority. In recent times, Pritish Nandy, him¬self a poet of considerable achievement, has been devot¬ing whole pages to his favourite poets. Otherwise, Indo-Anglian poetry is a rare, downgraded commodity.
In this context, the emergence of Lakshmi Kannan as a new strident but poetic voice is to be welcomed. She holds a doctorate for her thesis on the American novelist, Saul Bellow. And, a wide range of Tamilians know her as ‘Kaveri’, the pen-name under which she has written novels that have been hailed.