Introduction
Indian English poetry went through an important change with the emergence of the New Poets. Earlier Indian English poetry was often influenced by romanticism, spirituality, idealism, and traditional poetic forms. The New Poets brought a different kind of poetry. Their poetry became more individual, realistic, ironic, experimental, and connected with contemporary life.
In our classroom discussion with Prakriti Ma'am, we discussed the characteristics of these New Poets and the ways in which they changed Indian English poetry. The important qualities discussed in class were striking individuality, sharpness, defiance, non-conformity, and angularity. Their poetry can broadly be understood through two tendencies: poetry of protest and poetry of escape.
The classroom activity also asked us to imagine that we were editors preparing a modernist anthology of Indian English poetry. We had to select important poets and representative works that could show the development of modern Indian English poetry.
1. Classroom Activity: Preparing a Modernist Anthology
During our classroom activity, we selected poets and works that represented different aspects of the New Poetry. We considered features such as Indianised English, concrete realism, bilingual influence, individual voice, social concerns, and experimentation.
The following poets and works were included in our imagined anthology.
1. Sahid Suhrawardy
Sahid Suhrawardy can be considered one of the early voices of modernism in Indian English poetry. His collection Essays in Verse (1939) was selected as an important work for our anthology.
His poetry moves away from conventional spiritual and romantic poetry. It is more urban, secular, self-conscious, and sometimes uncomfortable. His collection The Indian Tragedy also presents contemporary urban life through irony and modernist techniques.
A representative passage discussed in class was:
“With hands thrust in my abysmal pockets…”
This kind of writing shows the poet's individual voice and his movement away from traditional poetic beauty.
2. P. R. Kaikini
P. R. Kaikini represents the poetry of social and historical observation. His collection Flower-Offering (1934) and his rhythmic prose-poems were considered important.
His poems such as “Shanghai” (1939) and “The Recruit” (1940) respond to major events and the disturbed condition of the world. They reflect war, destruction, chaos, and human suffering.
Later, The Passionate East (1947) introduces a comparatively hopeful note. His poetry therefore connects everyday life with political and social realities.
The critic Michael Roberts's description of Kaikini's poetry as poetry that looks at science, politics, and everyday life helped us understand why he represents the poetry of witness.
3. Jayant Mahapatra
Jayant Mahapatra was selected with Relationship (1981) as a representative work.
Mahapatra is strongly connected with Odisha, its landscape, culture, religion, poverty, and social life. His poetry is meditative and often melancholic. He looks closely at ordinary human beings and difficult realities.
His poetry was especially important in our discussion because he transforms a particular regional experience into a larger reflection on human suffering, mortality, faith, relationships, and morality.
4. Shiv K. Kumar
Shiv K. Kumar was represented through Trapped Falls in Sky (1976) and Articulate Silences (1970).
His poem “A Letter from New York” deals with the problem of identity in an East-West encounter. The speaker is questioned about his identity and refuses to accept an exotic stereotype.
The poem includes the significant expression:
“No, a brown Indian from the land of Gandhi.”
This shows the poet's attempt to define himself instead of allowing someone else to define his identity.
5. A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan was represented by The Striders (1966), Relations (1972), and especially the poem “A River.”
Ramanujan brings together his knowledge of Indian traditions, classical Tamil literature, folklore, and modern English poetry.
His poem “A River” was particularly important because it does not present the river in a purely beautiful or romantic way. Instead, he observes the Vaigai River realistically during both drought and flood.
His poetry shows how an Indian poet can use English while still expressing an Indian cultural and intellectual experience.
6. Arun Kolatkar
Arun Kolatkar's Jejuri (1976) was an essential part of our anthology.
Jejuri is a sequence of 31 poems connected with a pilgrimage to the temple town of Jejuri and the deity Khandoba. Kolatkar uses irony, humour, ordinary objects, grotesque images, and simple language to question conventional religious attitudes.
In “A Scratch,” he writes:
“What is god and what is stone…”
The poem makes us think about the thin boundary between the sacred and the ordinary. A stone can become sacred because people give it religious meaning.
7. R. Parthasarathy
R. Parthasarathy's Rough Passage was included in the anthology.
The work is divided into three movements:
Exile
The Trial
Homecoming
The poem explores linguistic alienation, cultural identity, exile, and the search for belonging. It represents the consciousness of a person caught between different linguistic and cultural worlds.
8. Keki N. Daruwalla
Keki N. Daruwalla was represented by poems such as “Before the Word” and collections including Under Orion (1970) and Crossing of Rivers (1976).
Daruwalla's poetry is known for its realistic and sometimes harsh treatment of life. He writes about floods, droughts, epidemics, violence, fear, and suffering.
In “Before the Word,” fear and worship are presented even before language develops:
“Though there were no words, fear had a voice…”
This shows his interest in basic human emotions and experiences.
9. Dilip Chitre
Dilip Chitre represents the bilingual dimension of Indian poetry. His Marathi collection Kavita (1960) and English collection Travelling in a Cage (1980) show his movement between languages.
His poem “Determined to Tell Lies” was discussed as an example of philosophical and dialogic poetry. It explores questions of truth, silence, religion, and communication.
Chitre's bilingual identity makes his poetry an important example of the tension between Indian regional languages and English.
10. Imtiaz Dharker
The final poet selected for our anthology was Imtiaz Dharker.
Her collections Purdah and Other Poems (1989) and Postcards from God (1997) represent the feminist and diasporic dimensions of New Indian English poetry.
Her poetry often deals with identity, gender, belonging, religion, displacement, and the experience of being between cultures.
One important passage from Postcards from God expresses the feeling of being a stranger in one's own world:
“I do feel like a visitor, a tourist in this world…”
What the Anthology Shows
The ten poets selected in our classroom activity show the wide range of New Indian English poetry. They do not all write in the same style or about the same subjects.
Some focus on social protest, some on identity and displacement, some on religion and myth, some on nature, and others on urban and contemporary life.
Therefore, the New Poetry is not a single uniform movement. It is a collection of different voices united by their individuality, experimentation, realism, sharpness, and willingness to question established traditions.
2. K. R. S. Iyengar: “An Indo-Anglian Poet Strives for Self-Expression in English”
K. R. S. Iyengar's statement that “An Indo-Anglian poet strives for self-expression in English” is very important for understanding Indian English poetry.
The statement suggests that an Indian poet writing in English has a special challenge. English came to India through colonial history, but Indian poets gradually made it their own. They had to use a language associated with another culture to express Indian experiences, memories, traditions, emotions, landscapes, and identities.
Therefore, English in Indian poetry is not simply a borrowed language. Indian poets reshape it according to their own cultural experiences.
Iyengar also connects poetry with both tradition and the present. A poet cannot completely escape the past, but at the same time the poet must respond to the present. The New Poets therefore bring together inherited traditions and modern experiences.
Three poets from our discussion clearly demonstrate this idea:
A. K. Ramanujan: Indian Tradition in Modern English
A. K. Ramanujan is an excellent example of Iyengar's statement.
Ramanujan was deeply connected with classical Tamil literature, folklore, Indian traditions, and Hindu cultural memory. At the same time, he wrote modern poetry in English.
His poem “A River” demonstrates this combination. The river is connected with the traditional cultural imagination of Madurai, but Ramanujan does not simply describe it as a beautiful or sacred river.
Instead, he observes it realistically:
“the sand, ribs, straw, and women's hair”
This mixture of Indian cultural background and modern English poetic technique is an example of self-expression in English.
Ramanujan makes English carry an experience that comes from Indian culture.
Arun Kolatkar: Making English Speak of Local Experience
Arun Kolatkar is another strong example.
He was a bilingual poet who wrote in Marathi and English. In Jejuri, he uses English to describe a very local Indian religious and cultural experience.
The poems are connected with the pilgrimage to Jejuri and the worship of Khandoba. However, Kolatkar does not present religion in a simple devotional manner. He uses irony, humour, ordinary language, and unexpected images.
In “A Scratch,” the distinction between God and stone becomes uncertain:
“What is god and what is stone…”
Kolatkar therefore makes English express an experience that is deeply connected with Indian local culture.
Shiv K. Kumar: Self-Expression and Identity
Shiv K. Kumar provides another direct example of Iyengar's idea.
In “A Letter from New York,” the speaker faces an East-West encounter. He is asked to identify himself in terms that reflect an outsider's expectations.
However, the speaker rejects the stereotype and asserts:
“a brown Indian from the land of Gandhi.”
The English language is therefore used to define and defend Indian identity.
This is exactly what Iyengar's statement suggests. The poet is not simply using English; he is using English to express a self that comes from a particular Indian cultural experience.
Thus, Ramanujan, Kolatkar, and Shiv K. Kumar demonstrate that the Indo-Anglian poet has to make English capable of expressing an Indian self.
3. A Critical Note on the Poetry of Jayant Mahapatra
Jayant Mahapatra occupies a special position among the New Poets of Indian English literature. He was a bilingual poet associated strongly with Odisha. His poetry is deeply influenced by the landscape, culture, religion, social conditions, and history of Odisha.
He can be described as a close observer of people and things. His poetry often looks at ordinary life carefully and reveals the hidden suffering and contradictions within it.
Rootedness in Odisha
One of the most important features of Mahapatra's poetry is its connection with Odisha.
He does not use Odisha merely as a background. Its religious practices, poverty, landscape, rituals, social problems, and cultural memories become central to his poetry.
This can be seen clearly in “Dawn at Puri.”
Puri is traditionally associated with religious faith and pilgrimage. However, Mahapatra presents a less idealised picture. Images of crows, dogs, and aged widows in white create an atmosphere of loneliness, mortality, and suffering.
Therefore, the sacred space is shown together with the realities of human life.
Religion and Social Reality
Mahapatra often presents religion in an ironic and questioning manner. His poetry does not simply praise religious traditions. Instead, he looks at the gap between religious ideals and actual human suffering.
His poetry therefore becomes a reflection on faith, poverty, mortality, and human endurance.
Emotional and Meditative Quality
Mahapatra's poetry is also marked by a sensitive and meditative quality.
For example, in “Listening,” the line:
“Every man, every beast trapped, deaf in his own sleep.”
creates a feeling of isolation and entrapment.
Similarly, “Waiting” asks difficult questions about death, pain, and the past:
“Why death? Why Pain?”
Such questions show the poet's interest in the deeper problems of human existence.
Major Themes
Mahapatra's poetry deals with a wide range of subjects, including:
Human relationships
Marriage
Morality
Human suffering
Religion
Poverty
Nature
Memory
Mortality
Human nature
Nationalism
Social life
Some of his important works discussed in relation to these themes include Indian Summer, Hunger, Bare Face, Shadow Space, Waiting, A Rain of Rites, Dawn at Puri, Life Signs, A Whiteness of Bone, and Land.
From Regional to Universal
One of Mahapatra's greatest achievements is that he takes a very specific regional experience and gives it universal meaning.
His Odisha is not simply a geographical location. Through Odisha, he explores questions that concern everyone: What is the meaning of faith? Why do human beings suffer? How do people live with memory and death? What is the relationship between morality and society?
Therefore, Mahapatra's poetry is regional in its setting but universal in its concerns.
His poetry can be understood as an important example of the New Poets' attempt to look at Indian life honestly rather than presenting an idealised picture of India.
4. A. K. Ramanujan and Arun Kolatkar as New Poets: Nature and Myth
A. K. Ramanujan and Arun Kolatkar are two important New Poets who bring a fresh approach to nature, mythology, religion, and tradition.
Both poets use Indian cultural material, but neither treats tradition as something that must simply be accepted without questioning it.
They make nature and myth part of a modern, questioning poetic imagination.
A. K. Ramanujan: Nature as Reality and Myth as a Living Tradition
A. K. Ramanujan was not only a poet but also a scholar, linguist, folklorist, translator, and playwright. His scholarly understanding of Indian languages and traditions strongly influenced his poetry.
He was deeply familiar with classical Tamil poetry, particularly its distinction between akam, dealing with the inner or personal world, and puram, dealing with the external or public world.
This knowledge becomes part of his modern English poetry.
“A River”
His famous poem “A River” is one of the best examples of his treatment of nature.
The poem is set in Madurai, a city associated with temples, poets, and the Vaigai River.
Traditional poetry often celebrates rivers as beautiful and sacred. Ramanujan, however, questions this romantic tradition.
He describes the river during the dry season when it becomes only a small stream. He notices the sand, straw, ribs, and women's hair caught in the river.
This is a very realistic description of nature.
He also contrasts the dry river with the destructive floods that sometimes occur. Thus, nature is not presented simply as beautiful. It can be beautiful, ordinary, dry, and destructive.
Ramanujan therefore replaces romantic idealisation with observation and realism.
Ramanujan and Myth
Ramanujan's treatment of myth is also modern and questioning.
He does not believe that there is only one fixed version of a myth. His understanding of Indian mythology and his work on the Ramayana traditions show that stories can have many versions.
Thus, myth is not something frozen in the past. It continues to change as different communities and individuals interpret it.
This idea can also be connected with his poem “Of Mothers, Among Other Things,” where personal memory and inherited cultural ideas are examined carefully.
For Ramanujan, tradition is important, but it must be understood, questioned, and reinterpreted.
Arun Kolatkar: Nature, Myth, and the Ordinary
Arun Kolatkar takes a different approach to myth and nature.
His poetry is marked by irony, dry humour, simplicity, fragmentation, and the grotesque. He does not present religion through conventional devotional language.
His major work Jejuri (1976) is a collection of 31 poems based on a pilgrimage to the temple town of Jejuri, associated with the deity Khandoba.
Nature and the Sacred
In Jejuri, the natural landscape and religious world are closely connected.
The most famous example is the poem “A Scratch.”
Kolatkar asks:
“What is god and what is stone…”
The question makes the reader think about the relationship between nature and religious belief.
A stone is an ordinary natural object, but at Jejuri it can become a sacred object.
Kolatkar therefore brings together the ordinary and the sacred.
Irony and Religious Experience
Kolatkar does not simply reject religion, nor does he simply celebrate it.
Instead, he observes religious experience with an ironic and questioning eye.
The temples, stones, hills, pilgrims, and religious objects become part of a world where faith, decay, history, habit, and everyday life exist together.
The sacred is therefore shown alongside the ordinary and sometimes the grotesque.
Ramanujan and Kolatkar: A Comparison
Although Ramanujan and Kolatkar use different poetic methods, both challenge traditional ways of representing nature and myth.
Both poets therefore show the central quality of the New Poets: they do not simply escape into tradition; they examine and question it.
Conclusion
The emergence of the New Poets brought an important change to Indian English poetry. These poets moved away from purely romantic and ornamental poetry and developed a poetry that was more individual, realistic, experimental, ironic, and socially conscious.
Our classroom anthology activity helped us understand the variety within this generation. Poets such as Sahid Suhrawardy, P. R. Kaikini, Jayant Mahapatra, Shiv K. Kumar, A. K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, R. Parthasarathy, Keki N. Daruwalla, Dilip Chitre, and Imtiaz Dharker represent different aspects of modern Indian English poetry.
K. R. S. Iyengar's statement that “An Indo-Anglian poet strives for self-expression in English” becomes especially meaningful in this context. These poets use English, but they do not simply reproduce English literary traditions. They reshape the language to express Indian places, memories, identities, cultures, myths, social realities, and personal experiences.
Jayant Mahapatra transforms the landscape and social reality of Odisha into a wider meditation on human existence. Ramanujan brings classical Indian traditions and realistic observation together. Kolatkar uses irony to question the boundaries between faith and ordinary reality.
What makes these poets “New” is not that they completely reject tradition. Rather, they look at tradition with new eyes. They connect the past with the present and use English as a flexible medium for expressing Indian experiences.
The New Poets therefore represent a significant stage in the development of Indian English poetry one in which the poet does not merely write in English but makes English speak in an Indian voice.
Works Cited
- Banerjee, Santanu. A.K. Ramanujan's Poetic Theory and Practice. Oxford UP, 2016.
- Dharker, Imtiaz. Postcards from God. Bloodaxe Books, 1997.
- Ezekiel, Nissim. Collected Poems. Oxford UP, 1989.
- Iyengar, K. R. S. Indian Writing in English. Macmillan, 1962.
- Kaikini, P. R. Flower-Offering. Thacker, 1934.
- Kolatkar, Arun. Jejuri. Clearing House, 1976.
- Mahapatra, Jayanta. Dawn at Puri. [Poem]. The Little Magazine, 1970.
- Narula, S. C. “IMAGES OF POETIC REALITY: AN EXPOSITION OF KEKI N. DARUWALLA’S POETRY.” Journal of South Asian Literature, vol. 22, no. 2, 1987, pp. 161–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40872971. Accessed 31 Aug. 2026.
- The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan. Oxford UP, 2006.
- The Indian Contribution to English Literature. Macmillan, 1945.
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