The poet-saints Namdev and Dnyaneshwar, from Maharashtra, India, wrote the earliest significant religious poetry in Marathi. They were born in 1270 and 1275, respectively. Namdev wrote over 400 verses in the abhang form. Dnyaneshwar composed his poetry in the owi form. His compositions, Dnyaneshwari and Amrutanubhawa, consist of 9,037 and about 800 owis, respectively.
Early 19th century Marathi poetry consisted of powada ballads, phataka, and lawani, which were composed by tantakawi or shahir. Prominent poets included Parasharam, Honaji Bal, Anantaphandi, Ram Joshi, and Prabhakar. The work of mid-19th century Marathi poets such as Krushnashastri Chipalunkar, Kunte, Lembhe, and Mogare showed influences from both Sanskrit and English poetry. In the late 19th century, Keshavasuta and Rev Tilak Narayan Waman Tilak produced poems influenced by English poets such as Wordsworth and Tennyson. They extended the horizon of Marathi poetry to encompass beauty in nature, love, romance, and mysticism as subjects.
20th century
Modern Marathi poetry began with Mahatma Jyotiba Phule's compositions. Later poets like Keshavsuta, Balakavi, Govindagraj, and the poets of Ravi Kiran Mandal, like Madhav Julian, wrote poetry that was influenced by Romantic and Victorian English poetry, being largely sentimental and lyrical. Prahlad Keshav Atre, a renowned satirist and politician, wrote a parody of this sort of poetry in his collection, Jhenduchi Phule. The major paradigm shift in sensibility began in the 1940s with the avant-gardemodernist poetry of BS Mardhekar. In the mid-1950s, the 'little magazine movement' gained momentum. It published writings which were non-conformist, radical and experimental. It also strengthened the Dalit literary movement, and in general many poets emerged from the 'little magazine movement'. A major change in Marathi sensibility began in the 1990s with the antipostmodern criticism and postpostmodern poems of Shridhar Tilve. Shridhar Tilve brought to attention how the post-sixty generation is outdated, in his article "Chauta Shodh". His first collection of poems was published in 1991 by Popular Prakashan. A 'new little magazine movement' gained momentum and poets like Manya Joshi, Hemant Divate, Sachin Ketkar, Mangesh Narayanrao Kale, Saleel Wagh, Mohan Borse, Nitin Kulkarni, Nitin Arun Kulkarni, Varjesh Solanki, Sandeep Deshpande, Prafull Shiledar, Nitin Wagh and Dnyanda emerged. Publishers include Abhidhanantar Prakashan, Popular Prakashan, Granthali prakashan, Time and Space communication Shabdwell prakashan Navta prakashan. Other 20th-century poets include Mangesh Padgaonkar, Bhalchandra Nemade, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, Namdeo Dhasal, Vasant Abaji Dahake and Manohar Oak. A new wave in contemporary Marathi poetry is the poetry of non-urban poets like Arun Kale, Bhujang Meshram, Pravin Bandekar and Sandip Desai.
