BackOn World Poetry Day, pay for a cup of coffee with a poem instead of cash
This is the second edition of the caffeine for creativity initiative, started by Viennese coffee roaster Julius Meinl last year
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Bengaluru: A frothy cappuccino for a ballad; a dark, bitter espresso for an elegy; sweet, milky latte for a sonnet; a steaming cup of filter coffee for a ghazal?
A new barter system has been instituted this year, in coffee shops all across the world, to mark World Poetry Day on 21 March every year: pay for a cup of coffee with a poem instead of cash. This is the second edition of the caffeine for creativity initiative, started by Viennese coffee roaster Julius Meinl last year that saw over 100,000 people participating worldwide.
Megha Harish, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at King’s College at London and is one of the Barbican Young Poets 2015-16, recalls her first brush with the Pay with a Poem initiative last year. “I think I found out about it through a Guardian article," she says, adding that she had walked down to a café 20 minutes away from her university hall to see whether it was actually happening. And it was. “Everyone who came to the café that day was given the option of paying with a poem and I thought it was a really lovely way of encouraging people to write poetry."
The reviving of a coffee house culture inextricably linked to art, music, beauty and dialogue is what this initiative is about, says Julius Meinl’s chief executive officer Marcel Loeffler. “The essence and soul of this culture is poetry. It connects people to one other and inspires them as it once did the Viennese coffee house literati of yesteryear," he says.
Set to take place in over 30 countries, including those in Europe, UK, US, Australia and patches of Asia, the company hopes to, “bring more poetry into the world" through this initiative. “Last year’s Julius Meinl campaign took place in 27 countries, 1,153 locations," says Julius Meinl’s international marketing manager Carina Leb. “This year the initiative is expanding to 34 countries and more than 1,280 locations."
Contemporary poet Robert Montgomery, known as the Text Art Banksy (Banksy is a British-based graffiti artist, political activist and film-maker whose identity is still unknown), is the global ambassador of this movement this year. According to him, “I think most people write poetry in adolescence and sort of abandon it in adulthood. With this initiative, we’re encouraging everyone to reconnect with that forgotten poetic voice inside of them and giving everyone’s voice equal value," he says, adding, “I love how Pay With a Poem provides a little pocket of freedom, where money is replaced by poetry."
Perry Menzies, proprietor of Urban Solace, a Bangalore-based café and culture hub, has also embraced this initiative. “We opened our doors to live poetry in 2010 and have kept alive the spirit of poetry by having an evening dedicated to poetry every week titled, Tuesdays with the Bard," he says. “The push to do something on this day that is celebrated around the world in various forums came from our community of featured poets," he says.
He has borrowed the same concept. “I welcome any poet to drop into Urban Solace, write a poem, hand it over to the reception and be rewarded for it with a refreshing cup of coffee. We hope to unite and inspire more poets through this initiative," he says.
For poetry, the poor cousin of prose, often relegated to textbooks of reluctant scholars or crammed into slim anthologies tucked in the farthest part of your book shelf, this is certainly a good thing. After all, poetry, as Irina Bokova, director-general of Unesco, says, “By giving form and words to that which has none—such as the unfathomable beauty that surrounds us, the immense suffering and misery of the world—poetry contributes to the expansion of our common humanity, helping to increase its strength, solidarity and self-awareness."
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