Noon: New and Selected Poems | Jayanta Mahapatra

Review by Rachita Swain

Jayanta Mahapatra was prescient before his passing, last year, at the age of ninety-five: “So it’s here / with all those dead, refusing to die, / the dignity of bone holding aloft our will to be.” Lines like these equip us with an empath’s vantage, opening up passages to his poetic impulse. For over half a century, his thoughts traveled to places where suffering awaited him. In his midnineties, dawdling with uncertainty about the future, his poems resist a rational ending; mystical silence pervading an individual and collective unconscious.

This slim volume has shuffled both his new and old poems. The reader acquainted with his poetry comes to know the fresh ones, yet the book blurs the distinction to create a cohesive world of suggestion. “Hunger” greets each new publication. An “Indian Summer” propels the warmth of a fading faith.“Ivory Keys” read more.. 

 

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