Jayanta Mahapatra Biography

Indian poet, born in Cuttack, Orissa, educated at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, and Patna University. He has worked as a lecturer in physics at a succession of colleges, chiefly in the Orissa region. Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971), his first significant publication as a poet, was followed by numerous collections which include A Rain of Rites (1976), Life Signs (1983), Burden of Waves and Fruit (1988), and Temple (1989); Selected Poems appeared in 1987. His work is notable for the poise with which disquieted alienation and deep attachment are held in tension in his perceptions of the traditional patterns of Indian life. The intense privacy which gives rise to haunting effects of mood in much of his verse is complemented by vivid use of closely observed imagery drawn from his urban and natural surroundings. Among his other publications is the topographical prose work Orissa (1987).