Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh - Works

Works

His first individual book was published in 1964, when he was on his death-bed: (चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है). Although Muktibodh could not manage to get his works published, as a book in his lifetime, he was one of the contributing poets to the first three volumes of Tar Saptak, a series of path-breaking poetry anthologies, edited by Ajneya."Bhoori Bhoori Khak Dhool"is the collection of his remaining poems.His complete work is available as 'Muktibodh Rachnavali"edited by Nemichand Jain.

He is today considered a bridge between the Progressive movement in Hindi poetry and the Nayi Kavita (Modern Poetry) movement.

Muktibodh made a name for himself in the field of criticism as well, with his strong views on the upper caste influence on the disintegration of Bhakti movement in India, which he viewed a lower caste uprising against the hegemony upper caste. In literary criticism, he wrote a critical work on Kamayani of literary doyen, Jaishankar Prasad titled: Kamayani, Ek Punarvichar.

Ek Sahityik ki Diary, first written for his column in the weekly Naya Khun, and later continued in the journal Vasudha, published from Jabalpur (1957–60), offers a glimpse of his literary and socio-political criticism, and insights into his way of thinking, and was first published in 1964. It is most noted for the article, Teesra Kshana (Third Moment), where he shows his preference for the hypothesis of three successive stages in the creative process, of inspiration, impersonalization and expression, rather than a single moment of inspiration