Memories of Time contains 75 poems from Sitakant Mahapatra's seven books (1980 to 2001) out of his 19 poetry titles. Here unravels the strength of man to surge ahead with his talent, taking it to heights from the well springs of humility, which is the secret domain of true grit, and connects with ‘that primordial supreme poet', ( ‘…who makes the sun…and finally takes us away to some invisible land') to whom the book is dedicated.
Memories of Time presents translations of Sitakant Mahapatra's poems in Oriya, (his dream language, writing in which was a conscious decision) that are soulful and honest, in which the longing to return, reenter, and harmonise with creation turns reverential: ‘And a heavenly gaze can bring illuminating reveries/ if only our souls could/ build a colony of nests/ like those birds swimming blissfully/ in that blue lake of sky (“Journeys”) .
Poetry, a thanksgiving for life, moves the poet closer to the mystery of man and the grief of the elements to which he is enigmatically linked, (‘ Tied to me with our common impermanence') and he turns sublime philosopher: ‘The Mahul flower/ falls and says/ not even a word' (“The Poet In Silence”). Loftily Wordsworthian, he sings ‘the supreme primordial poet's own poetry' of communion: ‘The trees had spoken to us last night/ in words that were already flesh in our bodies/ hugging ancient sorrows' (“A Journey through the Rocky mountains”). Colour intensifies the visuals: ‘ When the roused rain starts to dance/ come like Radha, / to the blue door of my heart:/ for I am yours only,/ put me to flight/ like a child's kite,/ in the loose, dispersed wind' (“Bhubaneshwar 1972”).
Transformations
Simple everyday content transforms into the universal in “Sunset in a Bus Rear View Mirror”. The mirror engulfs creation in the manner of Krishna's mouth ‘where cowering Arjuna shivers at the Universal Vision/ though everything is otherwise simple and commonplace'. The mirror then turns into ‘a life of flame and light'. Krishna legends abound in ‘Yashoda's Soliloquy', ‘The Song of Kubja', ‘The Song of Jara', that have been adapted into dance forms.
“Epitaph” appears a near perfect translation with the poet at his humble best. He is ‘unequal even to the dhoob grass…and (with) a terrible hunger for affection…. remains a child in total enchantment to the evening flute that invaded his being'. In “The Lemon Tree” the branches are astir with ‘the voice of my father reading the Gita' and the ‘tapasya of their silent sojourn into the dark'. “Kargil- Returned, Quietly He left” on the soldier brought home draped in tricolour to his young widow and daughter is a heart rending story-poem.
The poems lead us to the Jnanpith acceptance speech, a veritable testament to his poetic avowal that appears as a humbly modulated poetic organ lifted and loftily held over the church pillars of the poems.
It is interesting, that like Keats's Negative Capability, Sitakant Mahapatra presents his concept of a successful poem as being born of ‘the tranquility of words at peace with themselves…. A poem comes alive, when each word lives on its own and in its relationship with other words'. It works wonders for the spirit of the collection.
Memories of Time has hand prints of Sitakant's poems ; If the music of Oriya is felt lost in translation, the review by Erik Stinus “Listening to the Poetry of SM” redeems that loss to some extent. The translations carried by Jayant Mahapatra , Bibhu Padhi, Vikram Das, and the poet sadly remain without identity.
Sitakant Mahapatra's anima remains inseparable from his poetry and becomes a quest for truth of man and God as he blends in silhouette ‘At that hour when nothing soothes the mind, / nothing comforts/ (and) /the starved heart /returns for the love/of grass/ holding on to the fate of an exile. (“Returning From a Tribal Village in the Evening”).
Memories of Time: Selected Poems,Sitakant Mahapatra
