Monalisa Patsani
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, June 22: In this series, we introduce you to Sailendra Narayan Tripathy – a noted poet in English and also a widely-loved teacher who is regarded as a friend and guide by his students.
A senior lecturer at the prestigious BJB Autonomous College, Tripathy has been teaching young college students for the past 34 years. Before his posting at BJB College, Tripathy taught postgraduate students of English at Khallikote College and NC College in Jajpur.
A postgraduate from Ravenshaw and a Ph D from Utkal, Tripathy has published five collections of poems and has been the editor of Poesie India International – a prominent poetry anthology – since 1984.
“I was born in a village where croaking frogs in the monsoon, blooming jasmine flowers in the summer, the scent of mango harvests and jackfruit, the aroma of my mother’s dishes, the fury and the beauty of river floods and the desire to catch the rainbow after the rain drove me to poetry,” Tripathy says.
I am Phallic God and Other Poems published in 1989 was his first collection of poetry, in which most of the poems are on childhood, parents, and the celebration of life. The same year, he published The Trapped World, an edited anthology in which he introduced several Indian poets writing in English. He later published Hole in Soul and Moon ‘N’ Cuckoo’s Nest in 1992.
Speaking about his anthology Poesie India International which is published twice a year, Tripathy said, “I have been editing the anthology since 1984. Writers like Nissim Ezekiel, Keki N Daruwala, PP Joshi, Jayanta Mahapatra, Bibhu Padhi, Teresinka Pereira, Ruth Wilde Schuler and many other iconic poets are regular contributors to the anthology. My Father in Heaven, which is a long poem on my late father and about the rituals that followed, is close to my heart.” Some of Tripathy’s poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Russian and other languages.
“Poetry is a desire to express thoughts that are submerged in the depth of the heart’s ocean. My poetry is a desire to connect with humanity – dead or living. I still feel I have not written half of the poetry that I want to write”, Tripathy says.
“I’m a fan of poets like Shakespeare, John Donne, Keats, and Allen Ginsberg who have influenced me a great deal. I feel WH Auden has rightly said poetry doesn’t cure anything, but yet can be the biggest hope for humanity today to live in peace. I feel our students must read Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Kalidas, Prem Chand and Fakir Mohan Senapati to create a better ambience for humanity to live in peace,” the poet says.
Tripathy motivates his students to express their feelings through poetry. Some of his students, who followed his advice, are carving out a name for themselves in poetry and writing. “I always motivate my students to write poetry and some of them have been quite successful,” the professor says.
