KERALA KAVITA edited by K.Ayyappa Paniker and K.S.Narayana Pillai and published by MGangadharan launched with the support of a small group of writers was the first real mouthpiece of modernism, especially modern poetry, in Malayalam.Started as a quarterly in 1968, it did feature original poems by veteran poets like Vailoppilly Sreedhara Menon, Idassery Govindan Nair,Balamani Amma, Akkitham, Olappamanna, OMAnujan PKunhiraman Nair, Sugathakumari and ONV Kurup but its focus was on the new poetry that was being written by the younger generation.It published among others, poems by N.N. Kakkad, Vishnu Narayanan Namboodiri, RRamachandran, TRSreenivas, Madhavan Ayyappath, Cherian K Cherian, M.Govindan, GKumarapillai, Attoor Ravivarma, Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan, Satchidanandan, DVinayachandran, KGSankara Pillai and others who created a new sensibility and a new idiom that was capable of responding to the complexities of contemporary life with its anguish, despair and excitement .
Another feature of KERALA KAVITA was translations from Indian poetry as well as world poetry. Each issue carried one Indian poet from a language other than Malayalam and one poet from abroad.At times instead of one poet, it featured a series of new poets from one language : there were isssues carrying New Poetry from Tamil, Kannada and Marathi, for example. The poets featured individually included Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh from Hindi,Gopalakrishna Adiga from Kannada,Sitakant Mahapatra from Oriya, BMMardhekar from Marathi and JeebananandaDas from Bengali among others.The foreign poets included Chairil Anwar from Indonesia, Zibgnew Herbert from Poland,Voznesensky from Russia,Pablo Neruda from Chile, Cesar Vallejo from Peru, Octavio Paz from Mexico,Federico Garcia Lorca from Spain, Eugenio Montale from Italy, TSEliot from England and Leopold Sedar Senghor from Senegal among several others.The translations were done by well known and upcoming poets.Paniker played a major role in selecting the poets as well as translators, some of whom were initiated into translation by him.

A third feature of KERALA KAVITA was the regular publication of detailed textual studies of individual Malayalam poems.There were also discussions on poetry, essays and critical articles on poetry,poetics and poets. Verse and prose plays by Kavalam Narayana Paniker,CNSreekantan Nair and GSankarapillai and translations of plays by Sophocles,Beckett , Ionesco etc were also featured in the columns of the quarterly.

Each issue of the quarterly was released in a different city or town.There would bea seminar in the morning on some aspect of [poetry anda public meeting in the evening followed by readings which were sometimes in the form of a theatre.Some of these readings were directed by eminent film and theatre directors like Kavalam Narayana Paniker and Aravindan.Plays were also staged during some of the releases.

KERALA KAVITA as a quarterly created a new sensibility, and a new readership for modern poetry. It also brought out a series of selections by ten noted poets: Kadammanitta Ramakrishnan, Attoor Ravivarma, Madhavan Ayyappath, MGovindan, NNKakkad, Kavalam Narayana Paniker, GKumarapillai,Kunjunni, Satchidanandan and KGSankara Pillai.

KERALA KAVITA ia still being published by MMBasheer, in its second incarnantion as an annual carrying poems, translations , critical studies, short stories, short novels and plays.It has featured hundreds of upcoming poets and its release meetings continue to be an occasion to celebrate, read and discuss poetry.