Indonesian Poet Research Articles

Selatan—Sur—South

Kumpulan puisi dalam Bahasa Indonesia oleh IAN CAMPBELL/Poetry compilation in Indonesian by the Australian poet Ian Campbell. This collection of poems explores the notion of the 'south' from locations in Indonesia, Australia, Chile and Argentina, locations in which the poems were written. Explaining his topographical approach in these poems, Campbell says: 
 
 "One of the poems, titled in the Indonesian original 'Lejano sur' (Ke Kejauhan Selatan), appears alongside an English version, called 'Further South.' This short poem takes Borges's short story 'Sur' and a reference to Avenida Rivadavia that he includes in 'Sur' as its starting point for crossing into 'the South' from the centre of Buenos Aires. I then explore ideas of southness - as paradoxically moving 'south' away from North into a region where 'the natural elements are supreme'. Recent Chilean poetry eg 'Despedidas Antárticas' by Julio Carrasco (2006) picks up this idea of 'towards the essence' better than recent Australian poetry. Only Tom Griffiths, the historian, has recently explored this in prose. There are Borgesian images of dust/lack of clarity, then we head into a region where eg Torre del Paine, admittedly on the Chilean side of the Andes, come to mind. The stress on the elements - stone, wind, fire - is an allusion to the way Indonesian poet, Acep Zamzam Noor, portrays these elements in a poem 'Batu dan Angin' (Stone and Wind) which has strong sufi/meditative elements. We head into the polar area, which because of climate change, is now melting. But there is also an allusion to Douglas Stewart's play 'Fire on the Snow' about the 1911 Scott expedition and the value of 'human failure'. Even the 'essence' is melting and is no longer stable."

The Motif Of Si Anak Hilang in the Poetry Of Sitor Situmorang

AbstractRecently the Indonesian poet, novelist and essayist Sitor Situmorang reached the age of eighty. Situmorang has a Christian background; his origins are to be found in the Batak area in North Sumatra. His life and work have been summarized as 'to love, to wander'; in a way he has been a perennial wanderer and pilgrim, roaming around in many places of the world and being home, finally, in his poems. Part of his life he spent in prison as a political detainee. In this article we analyse the motif of 'the lost [prodigal] son' which occurs no less than four times in Situmorang's lyrical work, each time in a different context and with a different meaning. Connected with the role of the father and the mother and of a deep longing for his native village, this motif forms an important thread in his poetry, which often has religious allusions.

THUKUL'S POEMS OF RESISTANCE IN AKU INGIN JADI PELURU

Those who attempt to voice critically about the injustice done by the state frequently face the government's iron hands . Indonesia history has noted how some Indonesian critics from various fields are accused of threatening national stability so that they have to be culturized through many kinds of terror. Conscience writers (Mangunwijaya s term) are the easy targets of state violence because they portray the powerless, wong (the common folk/little people) as the victims of development, and the inappropriateness of the elites' behavior. For an authoritative regime. such criticism doesn't sound good because it makes look bad in front of the public. In the New Order regime. Wiji Thukul is one of Indonesian poets who does an advocacy for wong cilik . His poems are screams of the people from huts,factories. and graves.