Lost by Jayanta Mahapatra is a love poem. Here we read the summary of this poem. It is very useful for the students of BA English Semester II of BBMKU university.
Lost by Jayanta Mahapatra
Here I have learnt to recognize you at a distance. the evening heavy. the half-light wandering round the room. I've wanted to know what lulling silence can bloom in my hands. what pain and pleasure your mind can wear through the intrigues at my fingertips. I watch your body ease off the seasons stretched out on the stone of my breath, going nowhere. My hands move on. Inside the lines on my moving palms. is it time being set back to somewhere far behind on the edge of dream? Is it that Which quietly shuts my eyes? And outside my hands, where your body keeps shrinking in space. the first faith of some child goes wrong like some defect in a mechanical toy; yet what does it lead to? To what fateful encounter? Like a misplaced watch, this half-light. Where was I when I lost it?
Write a short summary of the poem ‘Lost’ by Jayanta Mahapatra.
This poem expresses the love feeling of Jayanta Mahapatra, which arise during the act of sex. He also studies the physical contact of two lovers and is aware of the consequences of making love regularly.
In the opening lines of the poem, The Lost Poet talks about his partner, whome he can recognize from a distance. He says that even in the dimness of the room he will recognize her because she has been with him for a long time. The poet wants to know the problems of human relationships as well as love and sex. He says he wants to know the pain and pleasure his partner feels while making love. He longs to know the secret of the sexual act.
In this love poem, Jayant Mahapatra keeps a close eye on his partner’s body comfortably in all seasons. Her body is spread out under the poet’s breath. The poet is one of the partners, but his thoughts move in lively directions—
“going nowhere”.
The poet gently touches the body of his partner and feels that dreams from his past life are coming true. It lingers in the memory and feels pleasure. He doesn’t know if it’s the physical presence or the pleasure of his memory that is silently closing his eyes.
The poet further develops the physical relationship between the two lovers and says that there comes a stage in this relationship when these contacts become dull and boring due to familiarity and routine. When the poet discovers that his partner’s body is shrinking, he loses faith in her, just as a child loses faith when his mechanical toy develops a fault. The poet does not know the consequences of this type of relationship. In the last two lines of the poem, with the help of a simile, he says that in the darkness of the room he discovers that his watch was misplaced. He doesn’t know where he was at the time he lost her.
The poem ‘Lost’ is written in free verse and has no regular rhyme or rhythm. The poet was greatly influenced by T.S. Eliot. The poet gives his poem some power by asking a question in the last line of the poem. This poem also has a symbolic meaning and has an undercurrent of love and sex.