Malayalam poetry is poetry written, spoken, or composed in Modern, as well as Old Malayalam and Classical, Malayalam.
First poets are called Kannassan Poets and also called Niranam Poets. Dispute is still going in this case. It is said that Kannassan poets are Madhava Panikkar, Sankara Panikkar and Rama Panikkar
Sanskrit prosody are primarily based on trisyllabic feet. The short sound is called a laghu, a long sound is called a guru. A guru is twice as long as a laghu. A guru is usually represented by a '-–' and a laghu by a '⌣'.
For easy specification of meters, the laghu's and guru's are grouped into feet (called ganam) as follows:
| ⌣ - - | yaganam | ya (യ) |
| - ⌣ - | raganam | ra (ര) |
| - - ⌣ | thaganam | tha (ത) |
| - ⌣ ⌣ | bhaganam | bha (ഭ) |
| ⌣ - ⌣ | jaganam | ja (ജ) |
| ⌣ ⌣ - | saganam | sa (സ) |
| - - - | maganam | ma (മ) |
| ⌣ ⌣ ⌣ | naganam | na (ന) |
Additionally, individual gurus are also identified by 'ga' or 'gam' and laghus by 'la' or 'lam'.
For example, the definition for the meter 'Kalyani' is 'three thaganam + two gurus' indicating "- - ⌣ - - ⌣ - - ⌣ - -".
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