Jayanta Mahapatra is one of the best known Indian English poets. He also writes in Oriya. Mahapatra was born in 1928 in Cuttack, the city where he spent most of his lifetime.
All his working life, he taught physics at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. He retired in 1986.[1]
Mahapatra has authored 16 books of poems. His poetry volumes include Relationship, Bare Face and Shadow Space. Mahapatra is a Sahitya Akademi awardee, and also a recipient of the Jacob Glatstein award conferred by Poetry magazine, Chicago. Besides poetry, he has experimented widely with myriad forms of prose. His lone published book of prose remains Green Gardener, an anthology of short stories. Mahapatra is also a distinguished editor and has been bringing out, for many years, a literary magazine, Chandrabhaga, from Cuttack. The magazine is named after Chandrabhaga, a prominent river in Orissa.
By all standards, Mahapatra's tryst with the muse came rather late in life. He took to writing poetry when he was into his 40s. The publication of his first book of poems, Svayamvara and Other Poems, in 1971 was followed by the publication of Close The Sky Ten By Ten. One of Mahapatra's better remembered works is the long poem Relationship, for which he won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1981. He is the first Indian English Poet to bag the honour.
Besides being one of the most popular Indian poets of his generation, Mahapatra was also part of the trio of poets who laid the foundations of Indian English Poetry. He shared a special bond with A. K. Ramanujan, one the finest poets in the IEP tradition. Mahapatra is also different in not being a product of the Bombay school of poets. Over time, he has managed to carve a quiet, tranquail poetic voice of his own--distinctly different from those of his contemporaries. His wordy lyricism combined with authentic Indian themes put him in a league of his own.
Mahapatra was conferred the Padma Shri in 2009 and was awarded an honourary doctorate by Ravenshaw University on 2nd May 2009.
Jayanta Mahapatra's homepage is hosted at http://www.jayantamahapatra.com .
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Awards
Second Prize International Who’s Who in Poetry, London, 1970.
Jacob Glatstein Memorial Award Poetry, Chicago, 1975.
Visiting Writer International Writing Program, Iowa City 1976-77.
Cultural Award Visitor, Australia, 1978.
Japan Foundation Visitor’s Award, Japan, 1980.
Sahitya Academy Award National Academy of Letters, New Delhi, 1981.
Invited Poet Asian Poets Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 1984.
Indo-Soviet Cultural Exchange Writer, USSR, 1985.
Resident Writer Centro Culturale della Fondazione Rockefeller, Bellagio, Italy, 1986.
Invited Poet University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 1988.
Singapore Festival of Arts, Singapore. 1988.
New Literatures in English Conference, Justus-Liebig-Universitat, Giessen,
West Germany, 1989
ACLALS Silver Jubilee Conference, Canterbury, England, 1989.
First Prize Scottish International Open Poetry Competition, 1990.
Invited Poet Poetry International, The South Bank Centre, London, England, 1992.
Cuirt International Poetry Festival, Galway, Ireland, 1992.
EI Consejo Nacional Para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico. 1994
Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art, La Jolla, USA. 1994.
Gangadhar National Award For Poetry, Sambalpur University, 1994
Ramakrishna Jaidayal Harmony Award, 1994, New Delhi.
Vaikom Mohammad Basheer Chair Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, 1996-97.
Invited Poet ACLALS Conference, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1998.
Awarded Honorary Degree Doctor of Literature, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, 2006.
Invited Poet Weltklang Poetry Festival, Berlin, Germany, 2006.
Bishuva Award Prajatantra Prachara Samiti, Cuttack, 2007.
Padma Shree Award India’s Padma Shree Award, 2009.
Poetry Readings
- outside India
University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1976
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, 1976
University of the South, Sewanee, 1976
East West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1976
Adelaide Festival of Arts, Adelaide, 1978
P.E.N. Centre, Sydney, 1978
Australian National University, Canberra, 1978
International Poets Conference, Tokyo, 1980
Asian Poets Conference, Tokyo, 1984
Aoyama University, Tokyo, 1984
Sapporo University, Sapporo, 1984
Writers Union, Moscow, Leningrad & Lvov, USSR, 1985
Singapore Festival of Arts, Singapore, 1988
Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur, 1988
University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 1988
Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, 1988
University of the Philippines, Manila City, 1988
Museong Kalinangang Pilipino, Manila, 1988
Irish Writers Centre, Dublin, Ireland, 1992
Sligo Arts Centre, The Grammar School, Sligo, 1992
The Guild Hall, Derry, 1992
WEA, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Hexham and Durham, 1992
The South Bank Centre, London, 1992
Universities of Hull and Leeds (UK), 1992
The Naropa Institute, Boulder,Colorado, 1994
Instituto de Cultura de Campeche, Mexico, 1994
Instituto de Cultura de Puebla, Mexico,1994
Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, USA, 1995
Hunter College, New York, USA, 1995
University of the South, Sewanee, USA, 1995
Writers Forum, De Kalb College, Atlanta, USA, 1995
Writers Forum, St. Andrews College, Laurinburg, USA, 1995
British Council, Kandy, 1998
Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo, 1998
- in India
Andhra University, University of Jadavpur, Calcutta University, University of Delhi, Osmania University, The Poetry Centre, Hyderabad, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, North East Hill University, Shillong, Tezpur University, IIT Guwahati, India International Centre, New Delhi,
Bharat Bhavan,Bhopal, University of Lucknow, DAV College, Kanpur, Arts, Science & Commerce College, Durg
Books by Jayanta Mahapatra
- Poetry
- 1971: Svayamvara and Other Poems[2]
- 1971: Close the Sky Ten by Ten[2]
- 1976: A Father's Hours[2]
- 1976: A Rain of Rites[2]
- 1979: Waiting[2]
- 1980: The False Start,[2] Bombay: Clearing House
- 1980: Relationship[2]
- 1983: Life Signs[2]
- 1986: Dispossessed Nests[2]
- 1987: Selected Poems[2]
- 1988: Burden of Waves & Fruit[2]
- 1989: Temple[2]
- Bare Face[2]
- Shadow Space[2]
- A Rain of Rites[1]
- Waiting[1]
- 2005: Random Descent, Third Eye Communications[3]
- Prose
- The Green Gardener, short stories
Mahapatra's poems have been anthologized in the celebrated volumes of Indian poetry edited by R. Parthasarthy and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
Critical studies
- 2001: Bijay Kumar Das, The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: third revised and enlarged edition; New Delhi, Atlantic, ISBN 8171569684[4]
- 2006: Jaydeep Sarangi and Gauri Shankar Jha, editors, The Indian Imagination of Jayanta Mahapatra, New Delhi, Sarup and Sons, 2006, ISBN 8176256226, a compilation of critical articles[5]
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c [1]Web page titled "Jayanta Mahapatra's Profile" at the Muse India Web site, accessed October 16, 2007
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n [2]Jayata Mahapatra Web page at the Orissa Gateway Web site, accessed October 16, 2007
- ^ [3]Ramnarayan, Gowri, "In Conversation: Brutal landscape" in the Sunday "Literary review" section of The Hindu, dated October 2, 2005, accessed October 16, 2007
- ^ [4]Vedam's Books from India Web site, accessed October 16, 2007
- ^ [5]Vedam's Books from India Web site, accessed October 16, 2007
External links
- Literary review, The Hindu, October 2, 2005
- A Profile of Jayanta Mahapatra
- JM's poem Freedom from The Little Magazine
- An Article by JM
- Interview at Muse India
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