Swayam Prashant (pen name of (Dr.Prashanta Kumar Sahoo) was born in the undivided Cuttack district, Odisha. He was formerly an Associate Professor of English at Sarupathar College, Assam, India. He has written six books and two booklets. They are : Evaluation of Textbooks in the Teaching of English (based on his Ph.D. thesis); Values in Life (based on a research project on Vedic and Upanishadic writings); Knowledge Tree (miscellaneous prose writings); Haiku from the Garden of My Own (poetry); Live Like a Man (poetry); Premras Amrit (poetry in Assamese); Virgin Land Impregnated (a thematic study of Canadian folk songs); and Joy of Love (a unique booklet of love poems).

My Father’s Son and My Mother’s Child

Everyone at some time or other
Has pretended to be somebody else.

I was my father's son 
And my mother's affectionate child.
But I didn't tell my friends what they were.
"Don't strip off before others," my father had said,
"Because they will exploit your weakness
And will manipulate you for their selfish interest
And if you won't fall into their design
They will become your enemies".

So to hide from them you become another self.
I too had become another self all my life
Till one day I discovered  myself
And feared not to be my own.
And now I am my father's son
And my mother's affectionate child.

Children, Poets and Scientists

 The poet, when he flies high in the sky,
 Discovers stars. The poet,
 When he sinks deep down in the ocean,
Also discovers pearls. No doubt extreme happiness or sorrow spurs
His imagination to paint his feelings in words-
To release the bursting exuberance or relieve of internal haemorrhage. 
 "O Mother, come, come, quickly, very quickly; see, see
 What a BIG animal !" shouts a little child
 Seeing an elephant for the FIRST  time in his life.
This is the joy no ascending of sky can give.
O the happiness of discovery children, poets and scientists share
But only poets build monuments of it in words!