To memorialise the large body of work left behind by the great Indian poet from Orissa, Jayanta Mahapatra, the Forum is organising a two-day National Seminar from January 7-8, 2024. Apart from being a renowned poet, Mahapatra was a close friend of the Forum. He took keen interest in its activities and attended some of the conferences as and when time permitted. Winner of several prestigious awards like the Jacob Gladstein Memorial Award of Chicago’s Poetry Magazine (1975), the Japan Foundation’s Visitor Award (1980), and the Sathitya Akademi Award for Poetry (1981), and Padmashri Award (2009), Jayanta Mahapatra, a writer in both English and his native Oriya, has published fourteen collections of poems in English. He has also published several translations of poems from Oriya and Bengali into English. His anthology of Oriya poems, entitled Kabita Samagra which includes his books like Kahibi Gotia Katha (1995), Baya Raja (1997), Jadi ba Gapatie (2008), Kebala Bhaya hin Mote Jibana Diye (2017) has been published in 2018. His magnificent memoir Bhor Motira Kanaphool came into being in 2022. Jayanta Mahapatra’s poetry is a serious quest of his inner world, characterized by highly imagistic meditations, mostly drawn from objects of nature like rivers, birds, fields and the two rivers of the Mahanadi and Kathajodi, the two life-lines with which his beloved Cuttack is sandwiched.
Jayanta Mahapatra’s magnum opus is his book of poems, entitled Relationship (1981) in which he recounts not only the glories of the history and culture of Odisha, but also makes an attempt to identify his self with his homeland of Odisha through its myths and legends. Looking at the cascades of suffering in his poetry as a whole, the poet could be safely regarded as the nightingale of the Mankind as he invariably makes his poetry a rhapsody of man’s suffering touching the subtle vibrations of “the still sad music of humanity.” Even though Jayanta Mahapatra is often rooted to the locale of Cuttack, his hometown, he makes an outreach to the suffering of the people – old men, women and children – of different parts of the world.
This Seminar which comes as a sequel to Forum’s earlier National Seminar, entitled, “Autobiography as Affective Archaeology: Exploring Jayanta Mahapatra’s Creative Oeuvre,” held in Baripada during 11-13 Feb. 2023, stipulates to weigh and evaluate the whole of the oeuvre of Jayanta Mahapatra. The former Seminar was a living tribute to the creative talent of the poet to which he with his robust presence could react to the rising issues with a quick and lively response whereas the present Seminar is a posthumous event offering a fitting homage to the world-renowned poet, whose poetry has crossed the boundaries of the East and the West. The uniqueness of the present Seminar lies in the fact that while the first one had the major thrust on his “just” published autobiography in Odia, Bhor Motira Kanphula (2022), the present one is much more broad-based, incorporating the whole oeuvre of the poet’s creativity like his Poetry, Essays, Memoir, Speeches and Interviews, both in English and Odia, and making a quest to understand the intricate vision of the poet about life itself.
Abstract Submission Deadline
We invite papers, both in English and Odia, on various facets of Mahapatra’s oeuvre from scholars, researchers, and faculty involved in his corpus of writings. An abstract or proposal, not exceeding 300 words may be sent to gita.viswanath@gmail.com with a copy each to prafullakar@gmail.com and derridae@gmail.com by Dec. 6, 2023. The abstract should have a suitable title along with the name and institutional affiliation of the presenter.