Jayanta Mahapatra As An Odia Poet- Ii Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Jayanta Mahapatra as a regional poet
Of the Oriya locale
And Orissan landscapes,
Villages and towns,
Coastal areas and hilly terrains,
Seascapes.

An Odia, Odia man
Writing about Odisha
In English,
Coming to Odia
Through English
And to English
Through physics.

A poet of Orissa, Odisha,
Odia people and landscapes,
Sea beaches,
Lakes, rivers and temples,
Towns, cities and capitals,
Villages and sanctuaries,
Hamlets and thorps.

Jayanta Mahapatra
A poet of Cuttack, Puri, Bhubaneswar,
Balasore,
Jagannath Puri,
Konark,
Lingaraj temple,
Khandagiri, Udaigiri, Dhaulagiri,
Daya river.

A poet of the Rathyatra,
The Chariot Festival,
Nabakalebara,
Jagannath, Balaram, Subhadra,
The grotesque, bizarre wooden statues
Made from wood
Ogling and puppet-like.

A poet man speaking to man,
Of the Oriya people,
Oriya history, art and culture,
Rocks, temples and trees,
Sculptures and figurines,
Beaches and shores,
Turtles and crocodiles.

A poet of the dark daughters,
Hardship and troubled living,
Woe and misery,
Pathos and pain,
He is a poet of the commoners,
Oriya folks, men and women,
Oriya landscape and populace.
.
A poet of the Ganga kings,
Kalinga kingdom,
He is but an Oriya poet,
A Oriya man,
An Odia
Who cannot accept
The defeat of Kalinga
At the hands of Ashoka.