Sapardi's words pull in new generations<\/p>\n
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Veteran poet Sapardi Djoko Damono is as cool right now as he
\nwas 10, 20 and 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month on the night of the launch of his latest
\nbook, Before Dawn, the young and sexy actress, Cornelia Agatha,
\nasked if she could pose with him for a picture. But the starlet,
\nwho usually has throngs of fans wanting to stand next to her, had
\nto wait her turn -- Sapardi had a long line of well-wishers.<\/p>\n
And his fans include the bestselling popular novelist, Fira
\nBasuki, who was invited by Sapardi to officiate the event.<\/p>\n
\"He called me himself to ask me to open the ceremony. Sapardi
\nhimself. I was touched. Of course I would; I felt honored,\" Fira
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most popular poet in the country, Sapardi's fame
\npartly owes to the successful way his words have been put to
\nmusic.<\/p>\n
One of the song versions of his poem Aku Ingin (I Want) was so
\npopular in the 1990s that it has become common addition to
\nwedding invitations<\/p>\n
Still more years ago, a soap opera on a private TV station
\nmade a teaser in which the star Bella Saphira made an ungainly
\nand inaccurate recitation of the poem.<\/p>\n
\"They did not tell me that they had used my poem as the
\nteaser. They also did not mention my name as the poet,\" said
\nSapardi, 65, a father of two and the husband of Wardiningsih.<\/p>\n
Sapardi stressed, however, that he did not mind if his poems
\nwere used for non-commercial purposes.<\/p>\n
Love poems, as simple personal expressions, can in the wrong
\nhands easily become mawkish or melodramatic. But written by
\nSapardi, they can mist the eyes of the hardest-hearted readers.<\/p>\n
For those who have never heard or read it, the English
\ntranslation of I Want by Sapardi's friend, John H. McGlynn, goes
\nlike this:<\/p>\n
I Want<\/p>\n
I want to love you simply,
\nin words not spoken:
\ntinder to the flame which transforms it to ash<\/p>\n
I want to love you simply,
\nin signs not expressed:
\nclouds to the rain which make them evanesce<\/p>\n
The man who made that the poem known throughout the country
\nwas AGS Arya Dwipayana, a theater worker in the French literature
\ndepartment of University Indonesia in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Arya, better known by his nickname Aji, was one of several
\nstudents who accepted a task from then minister of education and
\nculture Fuad Hasan to put some poems to music; the idea being to
\nmake them easier for high school students to appreciate.<\/p>\n
I Want's treatment captured the public imagination and two
\nyears later, Sapardi asked Aji and his friends to write music for
\nhis other poems.<\/p>\n
Still later there was the album, Hujan dalam Komposisi (Rain
\nin Composition), which contained more than a dozen songs.<\/p>\n
Over time, the poems on the album won the hearts of the young
\nand became fashionable. The effect was similar to the impact teen
\nfilm Ada Apa Dengan Cinta had on Syumandjaya's book Aku, which
\nbecame trendy after teenagers saw actor Nicholas Saputra's
\ncharacter carrying the book everywhere in the movie.<\/p>\n
\"Reading Sapardi's poems, which can also be imaginative
\nlyrics, I always have tunes playing in my head,\" Aji said.<\/p>\n
Because his poems are lyrical and sometimes a little abstract,
\nmany readers fail to grasp their meaning.<\/p>\n
Sapardi's works are seldom didactic and are not driven by
\nbroad social causes or revolutionary urges. Instead they are more
\nfocused on the human condition, aiming to evoke emotions with
\nsimple, yet-poignant words.<\/p>\n
Many readers find One Morning evokes a sad feeling they cannot
\neasily express.<\/p>\n
\"And so one morning he wanted very much to cry while walking
\nhead down through the alley. That morning he wanted the rain to
\nbe dripping down and the alley empty so that he could walk alone
\nwhile crying and no one would ask why.<\/p>\n
He didn't want to scream or cry out wildly or break windows or
\nburn the bed. He wanted only to weep softly while walking alone
\nin the dripping rain in the empty alley that morning (translated
\nby McGlynn).\"<\/p>\n
In the translator's note in Before Dawn, McGlynn describes
\nSapardi's poetry:<\/p>\n
\"With an elegance and a clarity few other poets possess,
\nSapardi puts into words emotions which every reader must surely
\nface -- yet may not be able to express, at least in words so
\nfine.\"<\/p>\n
Sapardi has written poetry since he was in high school in
\nSurakarta, where his family moved in 1957 to a new suburb.<\/p>\n
In the author profile of his book Ayat-ayat Api, the publisher
\nwrote that the new place Sapardi lived did not yet have
\nelectricity and had a village ambience, with birds singing and
\nbamboo plantations.<\/p>\n
His first book of poems, dukaMu abadi (Your Eternal Sorrow),
\nwas published in 1969 thanks to the financial support from
\nSapardi's friend, now-famous painter Jeihan Sukmantoro.<\/p>\n
So far he has published 12 poetry compilations, including the
\nEnglish translations of his works by John McGlynn Suddenly the
\nNight and Before Dawn; along with two works of fiction and
\nanother eight non-fiction books.<\/p>\n
In 1998\/1999, during the political turmoil surrounding the
\ndownfall of the New Order regime, Sapardi was tempted and
\nsuccumbed to writing about the social turbulence here, resulting
\nin the book Ayat-ayat Api (Verses of Fire), which some critics
\nreceied negatively.<\/p>\n
Many prefer Sapardi to write about what they believe he does
\nbest: Feelings, the rain, getting old, death, God, and love.<\/p>\n
Sapardi admitted that Ayat-ayat Api stood out from the rest of
\nhis poetry.<\/p>\n
He said that he had a principle, which was never to write a
\npoem in an angry manner.<\/p>\n
\"Angry literature, like some of that created in 1966 (during
\nthe fall of the Sukarno administration), usually fails to survive
\nthe passage of time. It is soon forgotten,\" he told The Jakarta
\nPost.<\/p>\n
After writing Ayat-ayat Api, he said in the book that he had
\ntried to be not angry despite the frustrating situation between
\n1996 and 1999.<\/p>\n
\"My endeavor not to be angry of course was not always
\nsuccessful as is perhaps shown in some of the poems in the book.\"<\/p>\n
His most popular poetry book, Hujan Bulan Juni (A June Rain),
\nwas published by one of the country's large publishers, Grasindo,
\nin 1994. Containing 95 poems, the book is a kind of \"greatest
\nhits\" of Sapardi; with a selection of his poems from 1964 to
\n1992.<\/p>\n
Some of the poems were written during a one-year period of
\nstudy at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n
Sapardi had earlier finished his undergraduate study at the
\nEnglish Department at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta in the
\nearly 1960s. He later earned a doctoral degree from UI, where he
\nnow works as a professor.<\/p>\n
These days, supervising graduates in their doctoral studies
\nhas means he keeps up with the latest trends in poetry and
\nliterature.<\/p>\n
While some people think changes in the language are a form of
\nabuse, Sapardi, who always speaks in Javanese to his Javanese
\nfriends, thinks it is a good sign.<\/p>\n
\"I have read 'chick lit' because one of the doctoral
\ncandidates at UI is writing a dissertation on it,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"Some people lament the fact that some teen books use slang
\nand not 'proper' Indonesian. But I think it's good. It shows that
\nIndonesian is an evolving language. It has not vanished, people
\nstill use it.\"<\/p>\n
Once Sapardi received a short message from one of his
\nstudents: \"When will we see you in class again? We are sakaw
\n(craving) for your lectures.\"<\/p>\n
\"What was sakaw? I didn't know,\" Sapardi said, laughing.<\/p>\n
He later found out that sakaw was drug-related slang.<\/p>\n
Sapardi is similarly unruffled that his poem Aku Ingin has
\nadorned wedding invitations, T-shirts and has been recited in
\nsoap operas, mostly without his consent.<\/p>\n
In an author profile written for Ayat-ayat Api Sapardi said
\neven this piracy made him feel his efforts to write in Indonesian
\nhad not been in vain.<\/p>\n
In 1987, he, along with his friends McGlynn and poet Subagio
\nSastrowardojo, author and professor the late Umar Kayam, and
\nwriter Goenawan Mohammad, established the Lontar Foundation,
\nwhich aimed to \"foster a greater appreciation of Indonesian
\nliterature and culture.\"<\/p>\n
Lontar's inaugural publication in 1988 was Suddenly the Night,
\nMcGlynn's translation of Sapardi's works.<\/p>\n
Lontar has become Sapardi's second workplace whenever classes
\nat UI are in recess.<\/p>\n
The Post found him one day there. Seated in a comfortable room
\nat a stylish Apple iBook G4, Sapardi was working on one of his
\ntranslation jobs.<\/p>\n
\"John has an in-house flair for design. He arranged this
\noffice to make it attractive,\" Sapardi said.<\/p>\n
One of Sapardi's most famous translations was Hemingway's The
\nOld Man and the Sea.<\/p>\n
\"Learning English makes your Indonesian better,\" Sapardi said.
\n\"When you write in English, you employ different ways of
\nthinking, which is later useful when you write in Indonesian.\"<\/p>\n
But when translating his poems into English, he prefers to
\nemploy others and is grateful to McGlynn, whom he says has done a
\ntremendous job.<\/p>\n
\"With John, I could discuss his selection of words. But most
\nof the times I agreed with him, he did a really good
\ntranslation.\"<\/p>\n
McGlynn has noted that while Sapardi's poems in 1988's
\nSuddenly the Night spoke of life, love and children, the poems in
\n2005's Before Dawn focused more on the end of life.<\/p>\n
\"Sapardi is no longer the young Muslim boy who cried outside
\nthe church door as his classmates celebrated Christmas...,\"
\nMcGlynn writes in the introduction to \"Before Dawn\".<\/p>\n
\"No, at the age of sixty five, Sapardi is -- no escaping it --
\nan older man, whose concerns are mental and physical frailty and,
\nof course, death.<\/p>\n
\"He doesn't like to talk about his glasses\/ which he sometimes
\nforgets where he's placed\/ about his silver hair\/ about his empty
\nhouse\/ no longer occupied by wife or children...,\" McGlynn says,
\nquoting the 2001 poem, Before Dawn.<\/p>\n
In Ada Berita Apa Hari Ini, Den Sastro? (What's the News
\nToday, Den Sastro?), published in 2002, Sapardi felt the urge to
\nwrite a special introduction.<\/p>\n
\"Suddenly, tonight, I feel that this book of poems, all of
\nwhich were written in 2001, will be the last,\" he wrote.<\/p>\n
\"This is mushy, perhaps. Or perhaps it is because I feel I do
\nnot need to write poems any more. Hopefully, not both.\"<\/p>\n
Sapardi facts:<\/p>\n
Born in Surakarta, March 20, 1960
\nPublications:
\nPoetry:
\n1969 Duka-Mu Abadi (Your Eternal Sorrow)
\n1974 Akuarium (Aquarium)
\n1982 Mata Pisau (Blade)
\n1983 Perahu Kertas (Paper Boat)
\n1984 Sihir Hujan (Rain Doctor)
\n1988 Suddenly the Night
\n1994 Hujan Bulan Juni (A June Rain)
\n1998 Arloji (Wristwatch)
\n2000 Ayat-ayat Api (Verses of Fire)
\n2001 Mata Jendela (The Window's Eye)
\n2002 Ada Berita Apa Hari Ini, Den Sastro? (What's the News Today,
\nDen Sastro?)
\n2005 Before Dawn<\/p>\n
Fiction:
\n2001 Pengarang Telah Mati (The Author is Dead)
\n2004 Membunuh Orang Gila (To Kill a Madman)<\/p>\n
Non Fiction
\n1977 Sosiologi Sastra: Sebuah pengantar ringkas (A Brief
\nIntroduction to the Sociology of Literature)
\n1982 Sastra Indonesia Modern: Beberapa Catatan (Modern Indonesian
\nLiterature: Scattered Notes)
\n1999 Politik, Ideologi dan Sastra Hibrida (Politics, Ideology and
\nHybrid Literature)
\n1999 Sihir Rendra: Permainan Makna (Rendra the Magician: The Play
\nof Meaning)
\n2000 Priayi Abangan (The Lapsed Bourgeois)
\n2004 Puisi Indonesia Sebelum Kemerdekaan (Indonesian Poetry
\nBefore Independence)
\n2005 Jejak Realisme dalam Sastra Indonesia (Traces of Realism in
\nIndonesian Literature)<\/p>\n
Awards:
\nAchmad Bakrie Award, 2003
\nAnugrah Puisi Poetra Malaysia (Malaysian Poetry Award), 1996
\nSEA Write, Bangkok, 1986
\nJakarta Arts Council Honorary Certificate, 1983<\/p>\n
From the Lontar Foundation and other sources<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/sapardis-words-pull-in-new-generations-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }