Shaswata Gangopadhyay’s poems move like soft waves that bring you into the inner landscapes of thought and feeling. His work has a way of noticing the small, intimate details of life while opening onto vast imaginative spaces. Reading his poems feels like walking through familiar streets and suddenly seeing them in a new light, or catching a fleeting moment that has always been there but never quite named. He pays attention to ordinary objects, gestures, and sounds and transforms them into something remarkable and tender. A mobile phone in a pocket becomes a thread of memory reaching back to childhood. A bar of soap in a shower becomes a quiet encounter with presence and love. Each day can feel like a galloping horse, a crawling snail, or a cooling slice of watermelon in the noon sun. He is attentive to both the restless energy of life and the stillness of the world.
His poems blend the personal with the universal, the physical with the imaginative. The city streets, the natural world, even moments of insomnia are turned into spaces where the human mind and heart roam freely. He brings together emotions, memories, and everyday experience with a gentle lyricism that never feels forced. There is a sweetness in his observations, a softness in his reflections, and a clarity in the way he expresses the subtle rhythms of living. At the same time his work is full of surprises, a mixture of playfulness and intensity, of wonder and quiet contemplation.
Gangopadhyay’s poetry is attentive to time and perception. A single day can stretch or shrink depending on the eyes that watch it. He explores the tension between waiting and movement, presence and absence, light and shadow. Even in moments of longing or insomnia there is a sense of patience and careful attention to the world, a willingness to stay with a sensation, a memory, or a fleeting thought. His language is unpretentious but deeply observant. It invites the reader to pause, to feel, and to see things that often go unnoticed.
In his poems the ordinary becomes sacred and the intimate becomes universal. A glance, a word, a scent, a sound can open doors to memory, imagination, and empathy. There is a calmness that underlies the sometimes intense imagery, a quiet joy in discovery, and a sense of connection to both the self and the world. Reading his work is like stepping into a world where the simplest moments are full of meaning, where emotion is neither exaggerated nor hidden, and where the reader is gently invited to explore the heart and mind alongside the poet.
Shaswata Gangopadhyay writes with care and generosity. His poems return to you, and they remind you of the beauty, strangeness, and subtle poetry of everyday life. They are small worlds that open into large ones, intimate yet expansive, tender yet strikingly alive.
- The way Vincent Van Gogh thought
Was I born on a stone
with froth and shrub on my body?
Here and there those mine- workers
and pregnant women, who ramble
like shadows, a cane-basket and hair grip
they have left behind are symbols of depression,
when I think that way
my blood fluctuates like ebb and flow
One who throws towards the distressed people
strong ladders knitted with ropes,
I’ll certainly reach near them
with my easel and colour-brush
Their wounded parts following my glance
are peeping through my drawings of sketches
just like a sun-flower growing solitarily
and secretly in the womb of night
- Mobile Phone
It’s only in the pocket of a shirt,as a snake
Sleeps well in the cane-basket of a snake-charmer
Off and on it sounds sweet whistle after retiring from sleep,
And I take it in my hand to see on it’s small beaming screen
Someone calling me in my nickname through misty fog,
As if one of my friends of childhood days
Sending an aeroplane made of hand-paper…
Or when I get your SMS in a crowded bus :
‘Are you sure to come to-day a quarter to seven,
I’ll be waiting with the flashing light of a glow-worm in my hand’
Cold and wet wind comes to my two dry lips
As milk is deposited unseen in the branches of cactus,
Trickling drop by drop throughout the day,
The very waiting of yours in the same way gets intensified
- A day of days
A day of days comes such a way
As if a jockey’s bending his body on a naughty horse,
Before the blinking of eyes 24 hours are over
A day of days comes even such a way
As if a snail crawls with its tired body
Even a single minute hangs heavy on it
A day of days comes such a way
As if it’s the very gape of a gluttonous monster
Whose uvula is visible,deeply red,
Nightmares are pacing up and down
A day of days comes even such a way
Like cooling water-melon in hot summer noon,
While biting,it seems as it were
God’s standing just a hand apart
A day of days comes such a way
When words,like the tiny fishes in herds
Glitter in the midst of poems
A day of days comes even such a way
When there’s no word in the fingers,
Just like the smoke of burning dry leaves
It vanishes in the ether in circles
- Bath
The soap you smear over your body,that’s scented
with herbal dust,that’s myself,you know,my dried up lips
Whenever you smear it,undressed,with none in the bathroom
It’s none but me you look at, from behind the mirror
I clasp and grasp you stealthily with kisses
on your shoulder,as if both of us standing
under the shower,in the small notch of an eroded stone
After this will start the festival of our caresses,as if
It’s a bulk of swinging white grasses on the riverfront
Juicy sap of almond turned into watery paste,
smeared all over the body,like the leaves of winter
I’ll drop and fling all dead cells from your skin with fingers
‘Waves and nothing but waves you’ve to look on
Is there any island nearby?’
putting your mouth on the lobe of my ear,
And clasping me whisperingly,you just want to float
As the moments like bubbles fade into the time infinite
You’ll cover my body with foams and froths
And will spread out my breath with yours
- During the night of Insomnia
Sleep is such a mythical creature who before being extinct
has left upon my eye-lids the shadow of its last descendant.
It only lashes its tail restlessly during whole night,
dry dust flies with the strokes of its prickles, fibres fall of
I shut my eyes,try to visualise a silent temple made of white marbles,
situated at far off sea,- whose every bit of tenderness and grace
has polished its floor and walls.
Imaginatively upon those smooth walls I touch my cheek,
lie down on the cold floor of the temple,
turn my body on the other side in fanciful wet wind
Still I can’t fold my two eyes
Have the watery vapours of my eyes gone dry?
I’ am afraid, is it then called : Dry retina syndrome?
Even now finny fishes play round and round my deep eyes,
the dreams do not bend to search them out
Only night,after finishing its run,
brings the shinning sun back.
As if a Negro athlete after winning the race is returning
with the gold medal in his hands
Shaswata Gangopadhyay: An Active Voice in Contemporary Bengali Poetry
Shaswata Gangopadhyay is widely recognized as a prominent voice in contemporary Bengali poetry, having embarked on his literary journey in the mid-1990s. Over the past three decades, his work has enriched Bengali literature but has spreaded across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts around the globe.
Gangopadhyay’s poetry has reached international audiences through participation in numerous prestigious poetry festivals across Europe, North America, and Latin America. His work has been translated into seven to eight languages and has been featured in over 150 international journals and anthologies spanning all six continents, evidence to its universal appeal and literary significance.
His published collections include Inhabitant of Pluto Planet (2001), Offspring of Monster (2009), Holes of Red Crabs (2015), In the City of Myth and Mushroom (2023), Rhododendron Café (2023), and the comprehensive anthology Poems of Shaswata Gangopadhyay (2023). These works collectively reflect his evolving poetic vision, marked by an exploration of myth, identity, and the intersections of human experience with the natural and urban worlds.
Beyond print, Gangopadhyay has been invited to present his poetry at national and international literary events, including virtual book fairs in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Australia, South Africa, Colombia, and Portugal. His presence has also been requested at eminent literary hubs in Paris, Vienna, and Frankfurt, where he has shared his work with global audiences.
His contributions have been recognized with numerous accolades. In 2024, he received the Sparkling Soul Award from Chile, Latin America, honoring his literary influence and creative spirit. More recently, he was invited to participate in the prestigious Gateway Lit Fest in Mumbai and was awarded the Voice of Kolkata Award, further cementing his position as a leading literary figure in India and beyond.
Shaswata Gangopadhyay’s work continues to bridge cultures and languages, offering readers around the world a profound engagement with contemporary Bengali poetry while maintaining a distinctive voice that is both deeply local and profoundly universal.
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