Tuesday 27 January 2015

Door of Dispair

Door of Dispair: Modernism in Odia Poetry by Bhagaban Jayasingh from Authorspress.

Modern Odia poetry was on the threshold of a major breakthrough in the late 50s. The emergence of new poetic movements in Odisha was the outcome of a wide variety of influences that the modern Odia poets were exposed to through their reading of the new poetry of the West, especially of Europe and America. The Euro-American experiment helped the Odia poets break away from their romantic predecessors, and develop a style or technique appropriate to the spirit of the new age.

The new poetry, variously described as “western,” “modern,” or often as synonymous terms, became not only anti-romantic but difficult, complex, sophisticated and technique-oriented. It was characterized by an overwhelming sense of loss, despair, anguish and chaos though not in the same measure as in the West. The revolution in Odia poetry may be regarded as an offshoot of the Euro-American experiment, and the messiah among the new poets, who came to exercise his influence on the movement, was T.S. Eliot.

The purpose of this book is to study the range and magnitude of Odia poets’ encounter with the West, particularly Eliot, including the many crossovers and engagements that this encounter had generated in the Odishan context with special reference to the works of some major Odia poets of the new movement — Sachi Raut-Roy, Guruprasad Mohanty, Ramakanta Rath and Sitakant Mahapatra — who played a significant role in “modernizing” Odia poetry that assumed different modes of expression in exploring new poetic possibilities.


In our Poetry section, Rs. 800, in hardback, 230 pages, ISBN :9788172739041

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