Memory, Nature and Countryside:A Study of the Selected Poems of Les Murray and Pradip Kumar Patra

The paper not only presents two contemporary poets from two different continents, but also their distinct ways of thinking and articulating the lines of their poems with deep conviction and realization. With allegiance to the respective country, each expresses his own construction and vision of the countryside with clarity and warmth. It is a common phenomenon in both Australia and India that the countryside is vanishing very fast with migration, industrialization and urbanisation. Les Murray and Pradip Kumar Patra are very sensible to such devastating phenomena. They express their concern for such havoc and build an alternative world or space in their poetry which the readers could understand and appreciate. The tone of the poets is calm, their emotion is also not fluctuating and thematically they are large and varied. When Patra is meditative like Wordsworth, Murray is imagistic like Keats. Needless to say, both the poets breathe a life of their own to their experiences and perceptions. Their poems, actually, say what imagination is. They just add wings to the realistic elements. Those just fly with the motion of ideas that the poets give.