Helping youths express themselves through poetry

Sometimes portrayed as archaic, the art of writing poetry is still alive and well, thanks to the efforts of people like Malachi Edwin Vethamani.

A poet, writer, bibliographer, academic and mentor, Malachi was conferred the title Emeritus Professor by the University of Nottingham upon his retirement in January 2021.

His published works include “Coitus Interruptus and Other Stories” (2018), as well as two collections of poems, “Life Happens” (2017) and “Complicated Lives” (2016).

Malachi (above) has also edited two volumes of Malaysian writings, “Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems” (2017), “Ronggeng-Ronggeng: Malaysian Short Stories” (2020) and he edited a volume of poems titled “Malaysian Millennial Voices” (2021).

“I have been working with a lot of young writers on ‘Malaysian Millennial Voices’ and 'Year of the Rat'. The winners of the poetry competitions came from that group of young people, so that was quite nice,” he said during an interview with Malaysiakini.

He added that he personally...