Odia Books

Jayanta Mahapatra was born in 1928, he was educated at Ravenshaw college, Cuttack, and Science College, Patna. He teaches Physics at Shaibabala Women’s College in Cuttack (odisha). He started writing poems rather late but once he started, recognition came pouring in. In 1970, Mahapatra received the second prize in a poetical contest held by the International Who’s Who in poetry in London for the poem “The Report Card”. In 1975, he was awarded the Jacob Glatstein Memorial Prize from Poetry (Chicago) for a group of his poems published in Poetry.

In 1976 he attended the International writing program at the University of Iowa (U.S.A.) as a visiting writer from India. From 1978 to 1985, he visited Australia, Japan and the U.S.S.R. on various cultural awards and in 1986 was a Resident Poet in Italy on a Rockefeller Foundation Award.

His two collections of poems Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971) and Svayamvara and Other Poems (1971)
show the travail of the poet struggling with his poems and achieving poetic effect largely in playing with words and images. His attempts at precision are unsteady, and consequently words and phrases border on incoherence.

A Father’s Hours (1976) is a slim volume of four poems. A Rain of Rites (1976) and Waiting (1979) have poems which show the ripening of Mahapatra’s talents and the sharpening of his sensibility. Much of the mist associated with earlier volumes is cleared. There is more concretization, better perception and more maturity in craftsmanship. Now words are employed with restraint and economy. His images and language are natural and organised. The poems have Indian settings. usually in and around odisha, and carry striking details of common places, touching the core of the reader’s heart.

The False Start (1980) contains some reflective lyrics relating to the poet’s life both in India and abroad. They unfold the poet’s characteristic meditativeness and are less experimental. Here Mahapatra depicts nature to reflect human conditions

Relationship (1980) won Mahapatra the Sahitya Akademi Award of 1981. It is an epic poem in twelve
sections with some striking symbols and metaphors. The poem shows his relationship to his country; its history, its landscape, its religion and culture, its rituals and traditions and to the shaping myths and monuments of odisha. The poem has, what the Sahitya Akademi citation says, “awareness of Indian heritage, evocative description, significant reflection and linking of personal reminiscence with race memory.” Here poetry seems to come naturally to Mahapatra even if its technique and scope are ambitious. The poem is remarkable for its contemplative mood, its verbal pattern and its sound effects.

Life Signs (1983), Dispossessed Nests (1986) and Burden of Waves and Fruit (1987) show Mahapatra’s
growing concern with man and his environment communicated quite forcefully. Selected Poems (1987) is a collection of his poems already published in earlier volumes

He translated a number of poems from odia which have been published in volumes: Countermeasures
(1973), Wings of the Past (1976) and Song of Kubja and Other Poems (1981). In 1977, he was awarded
Bisuva Milana Award for Poetry by the Prajatantra for his translation of odia poems into English. His book odisha (1987) is of a general nature.

Considered in totality, Mahapatra’s poetry is quite balanced without having verbal or emotional excesses. With his mastery over the medium, and his clear perception, his images and epithets become more effective.His commitment to the place makes his distinctly Indian voice more pronounced. The odia landscape, its temple and ruins are an inexhaustible source of his jnspiration – the very life-blood of his poetry. As Mahapatra said: “To odisha, to this land in which my roots lie and lies my past, and in which lie my beginning and end.I acknowledge my debt and relationship.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Devinder Mohan, Jayanta Mahapatra (Arnold-Heinemann, New Delhi, 1987);
Madhusudan Prasad (ed.) The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: A Critical Study (Sterling Publishers, New
Delhi 1986).

Odia Books By Jayanta Mahapatra

Prajatantra
Bali
Kahibe Gotiye Katha
Baya Raja
Tikie Chhayee
Chali
Jadiba Gapatie
Smruti Pari Kichhiti