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Jayant Kashyap is an Indian poet and academic. In 2021, his poem 'Earth, Fire', written after Yvonne Reddick's 'Translating Mountains from the Gaelic', won the Young Poets competition at the Wells Festival of Literature, judged by the poet Phoebe Stuckes.[1][2] Kashyap's first pamphlet, Survival, was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2019,[3] and his second, Unaccomplished Cities, was published by Ghost City Press in 2020.[4] In 2021, Skear Zines published a limited-edition zine, Water.[5] His third pamphlet, Notes on Burials, won the Poetry Business New Poets Prize in 2024, judged by the poet Holly Hopkins.[6]
Early Life
Kashyap comes from the Indian town of Purnea.[7] He currently moves between Purnea and Indore, and has previously lived in Prayagraj.[8]
Kashyap has been active since 2017,[11] when his poem, 'Identity', was featured in the display at the Healing Words awards ceremony on 28 September, 2017 at City Hall, London, UK.[12][13][14]
However, his work was first noticed in 2018 through the publication of his poem 'From Bletchley With Love', which was the third-prize winner in the Bletchley Park poetry challenge, judged by the writer So Mayer, on The Poetry Society's Young Poets Network. Mayer praised him as "a quicksilver voice".[15] Since then, he has published work in popular journals such as Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Poetry London, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere.[16][17][18][12] Most of his recent poems have focussed on ecocriticism and environmental awareness, with birds being an essential element in them. Yashasvi Vachhani,[19] writing about a set of poems published in The Bombay Literary Magazine, observes that "the reader does not even realise when they step out of their own skin to merge with the bird on the page."[20] The Bombay Literary Magazine also published Kashyap's poem about his namesake Jayanta, son of Indra, which Aswin Vijayan, the magazine's associate poetry editor,[19] noted as an introduction of his "crow into the tradition of crows in anglophone Indian poetry", alongside the work of such poets as Arun Kolatkar.[21]
Several of Kashyap's poems have received considerable acclaim, with nominations for a Pushcart Prize and for Sundress Publications Best of the Net twice.[22][23][24] Poet Julie Sampson noted him as having the "ability to match emotion with poetic-skill".[25] In 2021, a poem titled 'A Positively Violent Poem in Five Parts', which was the second prize winner in the Poems to Solve the Climate Crisis Challenge on Young Poets Network, was exhibited at COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.[26] The UK Department for Education-commissioned 'Education Nature Park' project's KS4 Poetry and nature resource features this poem.[27] 'Nilgai' received an honourable mention in the 2023 Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets at the Atlanta Review.[28] Kashyap also received an honourable mention in the Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets in 2021.[24]
More poems are archived at Visual Verse and the Poetry Society.[29][30] In April 2021, Young Poets Network celebrated their first ten years, and Kashyap called them "the best place for young poets [from] anywhere in the world."[11] In June 2023, in her Introduction of the Plumwood Mountain Journal's issue titled 'The Transformative Now', guest editor Kristen Lang mentioned his work having the capability to "become, of course, part of the tapestry of a given time."[31]
His first and second pamphlets, Survival and Unaccomplished Cities, were respectively published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2019[3] and Ghost City Press in 2020.[4] Published as part of the 2020 Summer Series, Unaccomplished Cities was selected by Ava Wolf and Dior J. Stephens,[32] and the cover design was done by Sania Salman Dar. Vic Pickup, in her review, notes that this "ten-poem sequence revisits key points of trauma in human history — from man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, to the ashes of Pompeii, bombed-out Düsseldorf and the bloody past of the poet’s native India."[33]
Kashyap's forthcoming third pamphlet, Notes on Burials, won the Poetry Business New Poets Prize in 2024. The contest was judged by the poet Holly Hopkins, who said about the poems as being "cool, reflective".[6][34]Notes on Burials will be published as part of The Poetry Business's 'New Poets List', which includes such names as Gboyega Odubanjo, Tristram Fane Saunders, Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith, Jay Gao, Warda Yassin, and Theophilus Kwek.[35] Hollingsworth-Smith and Kashyap collaboratively wrote a poem, titled 'Worm', in 2023.[36] It was published by Honey Literary in their eighth online issue.[37] Before winning the New Poets Prize, he was shortlisted in 2021 and 2022.[8][24][38] The competition was judged by Kim Moore in 2021,[39] and by Anthony Anaxagorou in 2022.[40]
He also published a limited-edition zine, Water, with Skear Zines in 2019.[5] This was following the publication of his poem, 'The Incontinence of Snow', in Magma's 81st issue, 'Anthropocene', edited by the poets Yvonne Reddick, Cheryl Moskowitz, and Maya Chowdhry. This issue included such poets as Zaffar Kunial, Zoë Brigley, Deryn Rees-Jones, Joy Harjo, and Shara Lessley,[41][42] and an interview, by Moskowitz, of "six leading young poets", including Kashyap.[43]Water was published by Skear on Reddick's recommendation.[44] Kashyap's essay, titled 'Writing Water, and on Its Need to Be Written About', was later published in The Mersey Review.[45] In further issues of Magma, he has appeared with poets Penelope Shuttle, Dean Atta, Polly Atkin, Eric Yip, and Jane Clarke.[46][47]
He has served on the mastheads of Quarterly West, The Adroit Journal, and Surging Tide Magazine as poetry reader and editor.[48][11][49][50] In 2018, Kashyap co-founded a literary magazine, Bold + Italic (currently on hiatus), which also included writer Kat Devitt and poet Lisa Stice as editors. They've published a total of five issues so far.[51]
He is currently working on "longer collections about people, places and being in love",[50][52] and on a manuscript about the colour 'blue'.[53][54]
Kashyap has also contributed work in the field of biosciences, including a review article[55] and a book chapter,[56] both published in 2024. Like most of his recent poetry, both pieces of scientific writing also have a focus on sustainability and environmental protection.
Works
Poetry
Survival (Clare Songbirds, 2019)
Unaccomplished Cities (Ghost City Press, 2020)
Water (Skear Zines, 2021)
Notes on Burials (The Poetry Business, 2025): forthcoming[6]
Awards
2021: Winner (First Prize), Young Poets competition, Wells Festival of Literature[1]
2021: Longlisted, Toto Awards for Creative Writing in English 2022[7]
2024: Winner, The Poetry Business New Poets Prize[6]
2024: Longlisted, Toto Awards for Creative Writing in English 2025[57]
