Indonesian-Germany poem night breaks down barriers

By Kafil Yamin

BANDUNG (JP): Words often unintentionally become chains of a poems' soul. Only poets gifted with extraordinary strength of spirit are capable of breaking through the bars of words.

Such an obstacle is more obvious when someone attempts to translate a poem into another language. Poet and editor Goenawan Mohamad was well aware of this when, upon being awarded the Netherlands literary award in Amsterdam a few years ago, he said: "Words should be freed from dictionary definition."

This suggestion does not sound easy to follow, but an Indonesia-Germany collaboration in philology and literature deserves a special salute for its success in breaking the chains.

An Indonesian-German poem night, held at the Bandung Goethe Institute on Aug. 22, could be the showcase of an irresistible quest of poets. It was earlier held at the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Jakarta on Aug. 20.

Poets are united by intellectual exploration as well as a yearning for human ideals. When it comes to this, geographic and ideological demarcations do not matter, as the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it: Those who know themselves/and know others/will surely be aware/that East and West is no longer separable/It is worthwhile to proceed in between/to wander between East and West/to reach the glorious end.

Berthold Damshuser, an Indonesian literary expert at Bonn University, managed to penetrate the language barrier when he performed the late Chairil Anwar's Aku (I) in German.

In a baritone and with total comprehension, Damshuser seemed to be bursting with the expression of his own ego and of the German's state of mind through the lines of Chairil, among the most revered poets here: Carrying forward my wounds and my pain/running/Until suffering disappears/And I won't care anymore/I want to live a thousand years more.

The attempted reincarnation of Chairil Anwar's Aku in the German state of mind was made possible by the background music of Peter Habermehl, a composer in Dortmund.

The combination of synthetic sounds and Damshuser's spirited baritone overwhelmed the audience.

With only an electric guitar, Habermehl produced various sounds that seemed attached to every phrase Damshuser uttered. The various sounds were wrapped up in perfect harmony. "I did not compose the music," Habermehl said after the performance. "I just let my senses, fingers, breathe work on their own. I just let them be part of greater motion around me."

Alienated

Habermehl's keyword in his music concept is "to stop the process of thinking" -- ignore your being. Then be sensitive. Let your hands, feet, breathe and tongue lead you to play an orchestra, he says.

Habermehl says he is not sure about what his music should be called. But once he came across the term "musique automatique" in a music dictionary. And from then on that is what he called his music.

Damshuser's total comprehension of poems should then be attributed to Habermehl's music. "When I performed Aku, the music flowed in a soft, tender and strange manner. It created a sense of being alienated and lonely, a circumstance which would normally be felt by a wild beast, as Chairil personified himself." He was referring to Chairil's famous lines: Here I am, a wild beast/driven out of the herd (Aku ini binatang jalang/dari kumpulannya terbuang.)

"Musique automatique", then, is a reliable, sensual and intellectual device of literary works, as experienced by Hamid Jabbar, another performer at the Indonesia-Germany poetry night.

"The other day I performed a poem expressing democracy and freedom. The Indonesian music group accompanying the performance produced songs of praises to God -- an expression of yearning. It implied that for us (Indonesians) freedom and democracy is something far away," Hamid said.

"But when you listen to Habermehl's music accompanying Democratie, Mathias Schreiber's poem, which is strong, clear and assertive, you feel that democracy is something real, something that already exists."

However, Damshuser differs in opinion: "It maybe true that Indonesia has yet to have democracy and German has. But what we have is not the democracy we want," he said.

He pointed out that he felt that democracy in Germany favored the wealthy. He shared the poem Democratie in Indonesian. A loose translation reads: I want it/you want it/he wants it/what we want becomes reality/but what becomes reality/is not wanted by any of us.

Hamid's masterful skill of bringing forward Indonesia's state of mind in German poems equally deserves credit. He was good at performing Helmut Heissenbuettel's poem So What, as if he was representing Indonesians' disbelief of politicians and religious figures:

Honest people are in fact corrupt/good people are in fact big boasters/vitality is in fact impotency/holiness is in fact excessive lust/morality is narrow-mindedness .../justice is in fact cruelty .../to be corrupt honestly or to be honest corruptly ...

Hamid also read out an Indonesian version of a poem written by Max Dauthendy during his stay in Garut, West Java, in 1915. Titled Unter dem grossen Waringinbaum (Under the large banyan tree), some of the lines go:

In a mosque enlightened by lamps/not far from the banyan's gloomy branches/pillars stand/made as though of snow/the imam's voice echoes between the kneeling congregation.

Collection

Another work of Dauthendey's tells of how in Garut he met God: You teach us to see far above routine/You teach us to trust eternity.

The breaking down of barriers between poets of different languages was not limited to the poetry reading nights.

The Indonesia-Germany Commission, established on Sept. 27 in Jakarta, has published a collection of Indonesian poems in German titled Gebt mir Indonesien Zuruck, taken from a creation of noted poet Taufik Ismail, Kembalikan Indonesia padaku (Give Indonesia back to me). It was edited by Damshuser and poet Ramadhan K.H., and a CD version was issued last year.

The collection includes poems of Chairil Anwar, Trisno Sumardjo, Sapardi Djokodamono, Abdul Hadi W.M., Toto Sudarto Bachtiar, Ajip Rosidi, Wing Karjo, Goenawan Mohamad, Sutardji Chalzoum Bachri, W.S. Rendra, Taufiq Ismail and Darmanto Jatman.

Indeed, the Indonesian literary community is greatly indebted to Damshuser and Habermehl. Their collaboration has introduced Indonesian poems in Europe. Damshuser tirelessly traveled European cities to read out Indonesian poems, equipped with Habermehl's poetical music.