Guess What? Emha Ainun Najib

Did you know that poetry can overcome supernatural forces? Poet, essayist and musician Emha Ainun Najib had just addressed a discussion on poetry when a power failure knocked out the room's audio and lighting system. This occurred during a recent book review of ASEANO: An Anthology of Poems from Southeast Asia at the ASEAN secretariat in South Jakarta.

The audience started jeering, but Emha kept his composure and adopted a posture that looked like he was silently praying. Then he asked the moderator to invite noted poet Taufiq Ismail to read a poem.

So with limited lighting and without a microphone, Taufiq read out one of his own poems. The power came back on during his recital and the discussion proceeded. Emha came up with the following explanation: "I prayed for the genies that guard this building to turn the power back on. But they asked for a poem to be read first."

Maybe this was the inspiration for his own spontaneous poem read out at the end of the event: "Poetry is the light that illuminates one particular reality of life while others are attempting to conceal it." (46)