World Poetry Month: Day Twenty-Eight

World Poetry Month: Day Twenty-Eight

Today’s poetry is ‘Hunger’ a poem by Jayanta Mahapatra. A poem entitled Hunger describes an experience the speaker had with a fisherman and his daughter.

This poem is very heartwarming. Hunger is conveyed in two senses in this poem. In the first instance, it refers to a persistent hunger caused by starvation, and in the second instance, an insatiable desire for sexual pleasure.

There is a theme of prostitution in the play, which results from poverty, social ills, and the circumstances of his life.

Additionally, it illustrates the attitude of people living in a society, but they do not come forward to help a poor, miserable man.

People who are strong want to suppress those who are weak and poor, which is a social injustice.

At the beginning of Jayanta Mahapatra’s hunger poem, hunger is symbolized by sex and sexual desire, but at the end, it transforms into hunger that causes people to do anything.

It is composed of four stanzas of five lines each. It does not follow a set rhyme scheme.

In order to describe the events leading from one hunger (sexual) to the other (physical), the poet uses a number of literary devices.

Dramatic monologues are used in the poem. In this poem, the speaker recounts his experiences with a fisherman and his daughter.

In addition, its compact structure makes it stand out. We have been given a very concise and succinct account of the entire event.

This poem portrays three different characters in a realistic manner. Moreover, Mahapatra’s choice of words and the skillful arrangement of the words deserve praise.

‘Hunger’ by Jayanta Mahapatra ▶️

It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.
The fisherman said: Will you have her, carelessly,
trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words
sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.
I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.

I followed him across the sprawling sands,
my mind thumping in the flesh’s sling.
Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.
Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed at the froth
his old nets had only dragged up from the seas.

In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.
The wind was I, and the days and nights before.
Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the shack
an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to those walls.
Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind.

I heard him say: My daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…
Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.
The sky fell on me, and a father’s exhausted wile.
Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,
the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside

You May Like To Check Out