Interview with Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal

Dr. DiwakarPokhriyal has completed his Ph.D. in Energy Management, P.G., and B.Tech in Power. He has written 1 Hindi novel, 14 poetry books and 1 short story collection which is published. He is a part of 100+ poetry anthologies/magazine with poets around the world. He has been awarded as ‘Top 50 Influencer Author’s Award 2k18’ by The Spirit Mania, ‘India Star Icon Award 2019’ by India Star Book of Records, and ‘Author of the Year  2019’ by Ne8x. He has been entered into ‘Limca Book of Records 2017’ for his books Poetry for Everyone 1 and 2. He has won “Aagaman – YuvaPratibhaSamman 2015” (Young Talent Award). He has also won “Poiesis Award for Excellence in Literature – 2014 & 2017” for his English short story by xpresspublication. He has participated in the Duet Poetry Anthology, a part of “Limca Book of Records – 2015”. He is also a rhythm guitarist.You can connect with him through his facebook page DrDiwakarPokhriyal or in twitter @poetofsenses.

Interview: First of all, congratulations on the publication of your book. How has the response been?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: I believe this is too early to judge the response, but the readers that have read the book has given me the positive feedback and it is really motivating to me.

Interview: When did you begin writing?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: Well if I remember it correctly, I started writing poetry when I was in class 9th and it happened to be a short story title ‘The story of a child’ and the from next year I started writing poetry too. 

Interview:How did you come up with the idea of exploring different styles together in your collection?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: Writing poetry for more than 10 years, it was surprising for me that people doesn’t talk about poetic forms. Being a part of various poetry platforms, I could see that poets around me rarely talks about varied forms. Mostly we listen to blank verse, rhyme or acrostic. Nowadays we also listen to Haiku. Being a poetry enthusiast, I often used to wonder about various poetry form and from there it all started.

Interview:You have explored different forms in one volume. How difficult write them together?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: It is more fun rather than a difficulty to write 50+ poetry forms in a single book. I really enjoyed writing various poetry forms and learned a lot. For someone who lacks interest in exploring poetry, it would be too boring. For someone like me, I loved to accept the challenge to write poetry in a certain structure, it is more like adding different colors to the same picture. So, it might seems difficult but in the end it is all worth it. 

Interview:If I were to recall the title, “There’s a poet in everyone”, how did you conclude that?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: Poets are not yet accepted as someone special in the society, rather they have been identified as someone who has a lot of extra time and money. But on the other hand everyone when gets too emotional start sounding like a poet or started reciting a poem and that is the proof that everyone has a poet in him or her, it is just that we doesn’t give the due respect to the poet inside us to live the life he/she deserve.  

Interview:A majority of writers are writing in the prose genre. How did poetry writing strike you?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: From beginning I love to rhyme. In the initial years of my poetry writing I have written ony rhyming poetry and I development an interest in rhyming lines here and there for fun. At present I am not only writing poetry, but I have recently published a Short Story Collection and Last year published by debut Hindi Novel. I just enjoy writing whether it is poetry or story. 

Interview:How did you select the forms you have explored?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: For more than 3 years I have done research and read a lot of forms, I decided to add poetry forms based on simplicity, ease of understanding, equally challenging and fun. If a poetry enthusiastic go through this book, then I am sure he or she will explore various aspects of poetry forms and would enjoy poetry more. 

Interview:You are a writer with many publications in his name. Can you tell a little about a few of them?

Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal: I love writing all books and would briefly tell you about them in the table below: