The LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) of Language: The Materialist Poetry of Arun Kolatkar and R.K. Joshi

The tumultuous politics of the post-Independence period in Bombay/Mumbai, and the creation of the linguistic states, released multiple and contradictory energies towards a re-examination of the Marathi language and its valence in linguistic, literary, social and cultural contexts. This essay employs the bilingual poetry of Arun Kolatkar and the Marathi-language poetry of R.K. Joshi to show the ways in which the sathottari poetry of Bombay engages with these socio-political questions of language and region by channelling the principles of concrete poetry and making the visual presence of the language (in its script, its lines, its presence on the page) a part of its meaning-making process.