Kavalam Ayyappa Paniker, sometimes spelt Ayyappa Panicker (12 September 1930 – 23 August 2006), was a Malayalam poet, literary critic, and an academic and a scholar in modern and post-modern literary theories as well as ancient Indian aesthetics and literary traditions. He was one of the pioneers of modernism in Malayalam poetry, where his seminal works like Kurukshethram (1960), is considered a turning point in Malayalam poetry. Many of Ayyappa Paniker's poems and his several essays were an important influence on later generations of Malayalam writers. His poems often reflected his deep concern for the environment with works such as Kadevide Makkale -Malayalam കാടെവിടെ മക്കളെ (Where are the forests?)

In an academic career which ran in consonance with his literary one, and spanned four decades, he taught in various colleges and universities before retiring as the Director, Institute of English, University of Kerala. He published over 25 works, translated several important work to Malayalam, including Guru Granth Sahib and a book in French; as a scholarly editor he produced numerous anthologies on Indian literature, he was the chief editor of the Sahitya Akademi's Indian Literary Encyclopaedia. Another important work by him Indian Narratology, published by IGNCA, was the first of its kind to study various forms of the art of narration, in Indian literature, starting with Vedic and oral literature to Buddhist and contemporary literature.

Paniker (his preferred spelling) was born in Kavalam near Alappuzha to E. Naryanan of Periyamana Illam, and M. Meenakshiamma. Fourth of the eight children, six of them girls, he grew up without any paternal affection, while his mother died when he was 12 years old, this early anguish and solitude deeply reflected in his poetry, which he started writing when he was in high school.

The Kavalam village, was also home to people like, K. M. Panikkar, historian and administrator, and playwright and poet, Kavalam Narayana Panicker, his cousin. He published his first poem at the age of 16, published in the Mathrubhoomi Weekly. He did his Intermediate at Malabar Christian College, Kozhikode, and BA Honours in English Literature at the University College, Thiruvananthapuram in 1951, thereafter he received his master's degree from the University of Kerala.^{[citation needed]}

Paniker took his doctorate from Indiana University Bloomington from 1969 to 1971 with a doctoral dissertation on the poetry of Robert Lowell, supervised by Robert E. Gross, subsequently he did post-doctoral research in Yale and Harvard University (1981–82).

Leaders, selfish and opportunistic,
tell us that life is for doing good,
that good is nothing but social good.
If we are clever in spreading the net,
we can have a good haul.

Paniker joined CMS College, Kottayam as a lecturer of English in 1951, after working there for a year, he joined the Mahatma Gandhi College, Thiruvananthapuram. He started teaching at the University College, in Thiruvananthapuram in 1952, and did so until 1965.^{[citation needed]} At this point, he became a Professor at the Institute of English and Head of the department in University of Kerala (1965–74). In 1974, he became Reader in English, at the Institute of English under University of Kerala, a post he held till 1980, when he became Dean of Faculty of Arts in the University of Kerala, he retired in 1990.^{[citation needed]}

Through his long career he lectured in many national and international universities, including around 25 universities in US, where came across poets James Dickey, John Hollander, Czeslaw Milosz and Allen Ginsberg.