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Tamil poets

12 articles

Bharathidasan

Bharathidasan (1891–1964), born Kanagasabai Subburathnam, was a Tamil poet, playwright, and rationalist writer from Pondicherry known as Puratchi Kavignar, the Revolutionary Poet, whose verse fueled the Dravidian movement.

Ilango Adigal

Ilango Adigal (இளங்கோ அடிகள்) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Tamil epic Silappatikaram, identified as a Jain monk of the Chera royal family.

Kaniyan Pungundranar

Kaniyan Pungundranar was a Sangam-era Tamil poet, remembered for Purananuru poem 192, whose opening line, "Every town is our town; everyone is our kin," is among the most quoted in Tamil literature.

Kapilar

Kapilar (கபிலர்) was a Tamil poet of the Sangam age, one of the most prolific poets of the classical anthologies and the devoted celebrator of the patron Pari.

Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy (Tamil: மீனா கந்தசாமி), born 1984 in Chennai, is an Indian poet, novelist, and anti-caste activist whose novel When I Hit You was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Meenakshisundaram Pillai

Meenakshisundaram Pillai (மீனாட்சிசுந்தரம் பிள்ளை; 1815–1876) was a Tamil poet honored as Mahavidran who wrote roughly 80 classical works, including 22 talapuranams, and taught U.V. Swaminatha Iyer.

Namakkal Kavignar

Namakkal Kavignar (நாமக்கல் கவிஞர்), born V. Ramalingam Pillai (1888–1972), was a Tamil poet and freedom fighter whose nationalist songs called Tamils to Gandhi's non-violent struggle.

Paranar

Paranar (பரணர்) was a Tamil poet of the Sangam age, one of the three great Old Tamil poets, best known for the fifth Ten of the Pathirruppattu praising the Chera king Chenguttuvan.

Pattinattar

Pattinattar (பட்டினத்தார்), also called Pattinattu Pillayar, was a Tamil Siddha saint and poet traditionally placed at Kaveripattinam around the 10th to 11th century, known for hymns of renunciation and devotion to Shiva.

Pugalendi

Pugalendi (Pugazhendhi Pulavar) was a medieval Tamil poet, honored as "Pugazhendhi of the venba," who retold the Nala and Damayanti story from the Mahabharata in his Nalavenba.

Tirumangai Alvar

Tirumangai Alvar (திருமங்கை ஆழ்வார்) was an eighth-century Tamil Vaishnava poet-saint, the last of the twelve Alvars, whose 1,253 hymns in six Divya Prabandham works include the Periya Tirumozhi.

Villiputturar

Villiputturar (வில்லிபுத்தூரார்), also called Villiputtur Alvar or Villi, was a 14th-century Tamil poet from Thanjavur whose Villi Bharatham, a celebrated Tamil version of the Mahabharata, runs to about 4,350 verses.