An Ocean of Becoming

an ocean of becoming Literature from the Indonesian Archipelago Melani Budianta & Manneke Budiman an ocean of becoming i an ocean of becoming An Ocean of Becoming: Literature from the Indonesian Archipelago Literature from the Indonesian Archipelago Copyrights to the translations herein are held by their translators Copyright to this edition © 2018 The Lontar Foundation All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from The Lontar Foundation Jl. Danau Laut Tawar No. 53 Jakarta 10210 Indonesia www.lontar.org Compiled and with an introduction by Publication of this book was made possible with funding from Melani Budianta and Manneke Budiman the Directorate for the Arts of the Directorate General of Culture, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Republic of Indonesia. Including literary work by Ben Sohib, Godi Suwarna, Intan Paramaditha, Cover illustration: DesignLab Lily Yulianti Farid, Lioe Ie Tan, M. Iksaka Banu, Indonesian edition printed by ……………………. Margareta Astaman, Norman Erikson Pasaribu, ISBN No. 978-979-xxxxxxxx and Zubaidah Djohar and translations by Kadek Khrisna Adidharma, Heather Cunrow, Stephen Epstein, George Fowler, John H. McGlynn, Safrina Soemasidradja Noorman, Tiffany Tsao, and Grace J.T. Wiradisastra ii iii is only one exception—in the works of Godi Suwarna, a poet who writes in Sundanese, a language originating in West Java. Translated into English, Dutch and French, the linguistic diversity will be Indonesian Literature: transformed, if not reduced, for a global audience. Curated within the framework of the Europalia Indonesia An Ocean of Becoming event in 2017, the nine writers have been selected under certain Melani Budianta & Manneke Budiman guidelines. All of them have been published in at least one anthology, preferably with some pieces previously translated into a European language. Indonesian literature, like the natural and social landscape of the The authors are to have strong communicative appeal for a wide country, is heterogeneous and fluid, reflecting traditions as old audience, as they are expected to perform for the Europalia audience. and as new, and as mixed, as the lifestyle of its population. It needs From the curator’s perspective, the selection is to represent the volumes of collected work to convey the richness of contemporary diversity of Indonesian voices, in terms of geographical spread, Indonesian literature. gender, and ethnicity. In line with the main focus of Europalia Out of this bulk of materials, only a few names—such as the Indonesia 2017, priority is given to writers voicing the relevance Nobel Prize nominee Pramoedya Ananta Toer—stand out globally. of ancestral inspiration, colonial-postcolonial experience, and the The revisiting of political trauma, such as the 1965 anti-communist biodiversity of a maritime culture. purges, and the rise of women writers in the past two decades, has brought more exposure to contemporary Indonesian writing. But Poetry: Orality, Writing, and Performance the promotion of Indonesian literature is still Java-centric, as Java island and especially the capital city of Jakarta, are the center of Of the four poets selected in this anthology, Norman Erickson global access. represents a poet anchored in the tradition of Western literary This anthology aims to widen the horizon of exposure, by modernity. The use of free verse, the allusion to Greek mythology, selecting authors from diverse regions, from Java to Bali, Aceh, and Christianity, the theme of alienation and loneliness lurking beneath Makassar, including lesser known writers with their own creative urban modern lifestyle, the self in search of meaning—are all there capabilities. The anthology introduces various thematic frames to in Norman Erickson’s poetry. His are poems to be read in solitary, discuss the works, showing diversity in Islamic expression, different critical reflection. This type of modern Indonesian poetry can be ways of representing gender and sexuality, cultural hybridity, and traced back to senior poets such as Sapardi Djoko Damono, Toeti multiple positionings of cultural ‘others’ within the nation. In its Heraty Noerhadi, and younger poets such as Nirwan Dewanto. It has poetry section, the anthology highlights distinctive aspects of orality developed in line with the reflective and spiritual poetry of the Sufi and performative tradition in modern literature. tradition handed down from earlier Sufi poets, from Amir Hamzah With the selection of nine writers—five prose writers and to Abdul Hadi W.M. four poets—the anthology can give only a tiny glimpse of the Closely connected and intersecting with this type of poetry is the cultural diversity of a country with a population of more than popularity of declamation, the act of reciting and performing poetry 240 million people, inhabiting over 13,000 islands and speaking with dynamic modulation of voice and bodily gestures. Indonesian 300 languages. The original works are written in the Indonesian poetry written in Indonesian, as well as in other local languages, has language, Bahasa Indonesia, colored by diverse local idioms. There strong auditory appeal, a characteristic that stems from the rhyming vi vii oral poetic tradition called pantun. The works of well-known poets oral tradition. The four poets selected here also show the multi- such as Chairil Anwar and W.S. Rendra maintain this auditory dimensional nature of Indonesian literature, not merely as belles- element and dramatic voice in their free-verse poems, which makes lettres, but as the intersection of music and theatre, ritual and their work popular in declamation competitions nationwide. social activism. The works of the three other poets in this anthology lie in the intersection of poetry as a written literature and as a repertoire for Literature, Ecology and the Hybrid Cultures performance. Godi Suwarna’s poems, written in the Sundanese of the Archipelago language, which is known to be highly melodious, are strong in their sound-scape. His poem “Grand-Prix,” for example, The works of the poets mentioned above, and the prose writers, audibly embodies the noise of the street life. City sound-scape is reflect critical awareness of the socio-cultural conditions and represented in its multi-linguality, with popular music in English surrounding natural environment of the Indonesian archipelago. blazing through mass transportation and the melodious Sundanese The poem of senior poet Taufiq Ismail, “Give me Sumba,” uploaded chanting framing the scene. Can such poems be translated? Many in the Europalia Indonesia website, for example, evokes the sunny of Godi Suwarna’s poems are basically oral, like music, and they grassland of the savannah, with neighing horses and the cry of herders. are supposed to be heard in their original language. In fact, Godi Zubaidah Djohar’s poems about Aceh are filled with the aroma of Suwarna’s poetry reading has always been a performance, with strong the seashore. At the same time, while their works evoke the local theatrical aspects, incorporating costume, background music, and color of the culture and their place of origin, they do not represent traditional chanting. In this anthology, the poems, unfortunately, a particular region in a fixed way. Instead, the poets’ biographies will be reduced to their verbal meaning only. and their work in this anthology reveal the cross-cultural exchanges Like Godi, Tan Lioe Ie is a performer, mixing poetry and music. and the hybrid formation of Indonesia in a globalized era. He has published musical albums, adapting his (and also other The poems of Godi Suwarna, a poet residing in a small town in poets’) poetry into music, with him playing the solo guitar. On stage, West Java, do bring about the atmosphere of the West Javanese local he sings, chants, and dramatizes his poems into a choreographed culture through the use of Sundanese language and diction. Yet, performance. At the same time, Tan Lioe Ie also writes haiku-type instead of the nuance of melancholic flute—a dominant sound of poems, with calculated syllables and rigid forms. In this aspect, the rural Sundanese music—his poem, “Grand Prix” as discussed above, words, written in Indonesian language in Latin script, are treated mixes traditional chanting with the roaring of race cars. This is the like ideographic Chinese characters, with each word representing an world where urban development is both in tension and at the same image—like haiku-inspired modernist poems. Resembling Ciam Si, time mixed with the local, traditional voice. Similarly, Tan Lioe Chinese prophetic cards used in temples, Tan Lioe Ie’s haiku-type Ie, a poet from Bali, one of the best known tourist destinations poems have been used by some Chinese Indonesians as such cards. in Indonesia, does not represent Balinese tradition. Instead, his Some people actually place the poetry book on the family altar. poems are suffused with reference from Peranakan Chinese culture.1 A number of Zubaidah Djohar’s poems, like Godi and Tan Lioe Zubaidah Djohar, who is an ethnic Minangkabau from West Ie’s, are mixed with local Acehnese chanting, and lend themselves Sumatra, writes about Aceh, in North Sumatra. Her poems are strongly to be performed orally, at times combined with traditional rich in Acehnese diction, folklore, and music. It is to note here music and dance. With strong feminist activism as her background, Zubaidah’s lyrics show more direct messages, and strong pathos. The poetry section in this anthology shows this continuing 1 Peranakan Chinese is a term referring to Indonesians from Chinese background, with a dialogue and interplay between Western literary modernity and long history of migration, and whose culture shows assimilation to local culture.) viii ix that coming from the matrilineal tradition of the Minangkabau From Aceh, Makassar, and the Betawi cultural landscapes, the culture, Zubaidah is highly empathetic of the sufferings of women stories and poems express multiple voices of the Muslim majority.

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