International poetic feast on display in Bali

International poetic feast on display in Bali

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

He recited the first line and everybody in the audience fell
silent, instantly aware that before them stood a man who had
survived the bitterest of days, the coldest of nights. The half
darkened stage or the dim yellow light could not conceal the
energy that shone with his soaring words.

"Something comes to you/from afar tonight, tethering its
horse/in the courtyard while children/gather ghosts and
shadows/among the stones."

Hundreds of literary enthusiasts, who flocked the Wantilan
hall of Denpasar's Werddhi Budaya Art Center for the first night
of the International Literary Feast last Friday, were equally
mesmerized and stimulated by the poem, which, on the surface,
spoke about black magic and, on a deeper level, about death.

"He was simply fantastic, I have never known that a poem could
be delivered in such a tremendously powerful way," said Cok
Yudhis, a spectator.

The poem was Possession and the poet was Frans Nadjira, a
towering yet elusive figure in Bali literary circles. The
hardships of his adolescent years, the tragic demise of his
beloved daughter and the banal hypocrisy he often encountered in
the art and literary world has transformed Nadjira into a
solitary figure.

On the other hand, his reclusive life and psychic gift have
bestowed him with a lucid and tranquil understanding of the
inevitability of death. That comprehension was a recurring theme
in his works, poems and paintings.

Along with soft-spoken senior poet Umbu Landu Paranggi,
Nadjira was the living force behind the renaissance of Bali
contemporary literature in the '80s and '90s, the shining period
that gave birth to numerous talented and award-winning poets and
authors like Fajar Arcana, Mas Ruscitadewi, Oka Rusmini, Cok
Sawitri, Tan Lioe Ie and Warih Wisatsana.

"It was my first on-stage poetry recitation after 20 long
years and I am very happy that I did it," Frans Nadjira said.

The three-day event, which was co-organized by the Dutch-based
Winternachten Festival, Jakarta-based Komunitas Utan Kayu and
Bali-based Kelompok Tulus Ngayah, had not only succeeded in
persuading Nadjira to take the stage once again, but also in
providing local literary enthusiasts with arguably one of the
finest literary events so far.

With Sound Poetry From Different Faiths as its theme, the
festival featured on it first night poetry recitations by Chitra
Gajadin (Suriname), Ide Hintze (Austria), Adriaan Van Dis
(Netherlands), Oka Rusmini (Bali) and two religious musical
performances.

The second night's poetry recitation presented Warih Wisatsana
and promising young poet Vivi Lestari from Bali, Changa Hickinson
(St. Marteen, Antilles), Sello Dulker (South Africa), Curd Duca
(Austria) and a monologue performance by Balinese actor Putu
Satria Kusuma.

The second night undoubtedly belonged to Denise Jannah
(Suriname), an accomplished jazz singer who sung poems from
Suriname and the Netherlands accompanies by her easy-listening
musical compositions.

Assisted prominent Indonesian poet and thinker Goenawan
Mohamad, who translated the poems into Indonesian, Denise's warm
personality and spellbinding voice easily won the audience's
heart.

"Jannah did not force her tunes, compositions or perceptions
on the poems. Instead, she let the musical quality of the poems,
the words, come out freely. She based her compositions on the
poems' inherent melody, that's why her songs were so beautiful
and so true to the messages of the poems," said Tulus Ngayah
coordinator's Cok Sawitri.

Ulil Abshar Abdalla, an influential liberal Muslim
intellectual, provided his valuable insights on Islamic militancy
in a small discussion held on the event's third day.

In conjunction with the event, a workshop on sound poetry was
held in Kuta. Assisted by the Vienna Poetry School, a selected
group of 20 students from different ethnic and religious origins
were given a chance to explore their religious experiences and to
transform those into experimental sound poems.

Several poets, composers and artists, including Denise Jannah,
Curd Duca, Ide Hintze, Made Taro and Hasif Amini were involved in
the workshop, sharing their experiences and assisting the
students in exploring new aesthetic frontiers.

These collaborative works of the students and their mentors
would be featured at a similar event in Jakarta in early
September.

"The workshop has showed me that Bali has plenty of talented
young poets. It also opened my eyes to the possibility of using
new mediums like digitalized sounds in creating poetry," Sawitri
said.