Bishnu Dey was a Bengali poet, writer and academician in the era of modernism, post-modernism. Starting off as a symbologist, he won recognition for the musical quality of his poems, and forms the post-Tagore generation of Bengali poets, like Buddhadeb Basu and Samar Sen, which marked the advent of "New Poetry" in Bengali literature, deeply influenced by Marxist ideology. He published a magazine wherein he encouraged socially conscious writing. His own work reveals a poet's solitary struggle, quest for human dignity, amidst a crisis of uprooted identity. Through his literary career, he taught English literature at various institutes such as the Ripon College, Presidency College (1944–1947), Maulana Azad College (1947–1969) and Krishnanagar College. In the 1920s & 1930s, he was also remained a member of a young group of poets, centered on the " Kallol" (Commotion) magazine.