SHILLONG: The Asian Confluence Centre organized an “Evening of Poetry” in collaboration with Poetry Society of Shillong on Wednesday. Dr Diti Ronen, famed poet from Israel, enthralled the audience with a reading of her poems. The program also featured a large number of local poets who read out their poetry. The director of Asian Confluence, Sabyasachi Dutta hopes that this will be the start of a new beginning for poets of Shillong, which was a common sentiment expressed.
Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Diti is also a theatre researcher besides being a poet. She teaches cultural policy and arts management in The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and advises on these subjects to Governmental offices, municipalities, arts funding organizations and to cultural and artistic institutions. Ronen studied theatre in Tel Aviv University and received her PhD degree on her theory of the acting selves. She is deeply involved in the Israeli cultural scene.
Diti published three volumes of poetry to date: With the Slip Showing, Inner Moon, Notebook and littlebird and she is about to publish her next volume in 2014. She is the editor of the poetry events at Beit Ariella, the Tel Aviv central library. Ronen was awarded four prizes and awards for her literary work, two from international poetry organizations and two were given to her by Israeli organizations.
She was chosen to attend a prestigious one year master class for outstanding poets in Mishkenot Sha’ananim (1997). Ronen was invited twice to hold “poet in Residency” positions, once in Mysore University (2010-2011, Karnataka, India) and once in Kuvempu University (2012-2013).