Passion for poetry breeds good, bad work

By Cecep Syamsul Hari

BANDUNG (JP): New poets and their works have flourished in the past 10 years.

Works predominate in cultural journals and bulletins as well as anthologies published by various "literature communities" such as the Bandung Literature Forum, Indonesian Literature Society in Tangerang, Literature Circle in Serang and Tasikmalaya Literature House, all in West Java, and Cak Foundation and Bali Mangsi Cultural House in Bali.

In many cases, individual poets managed to publish their collected poems by themselves -- with the support of their close friends -- and it is not unusual for the writer to do the ground work of marketing the books.

The growing passion for poetry has resulted in the emergence of not only intriguing, dazzling works, but also esthetically banal, mediocre poems.

The popularity of poetry in Indonesia cannot be denied. There is an increasing number of public poetry readings, which bring poets into direct contact with their audience. It is easy to find poetry recitals not only at cultural events, but also those with social or political themes.

Poems have been used as tools to express messages, such as political anguish or the thoughts of a movement. This was evident at various student demonstrations in Jakarta and other cities, before and after Soeharto stepped down.

In the past five years, we have found a phenomenon of the musicalization of poems, which has opened up a larger audience among the public. Musicians like Harry Roesli, Dede Haris, Ari Malibu and Buki Wikagoe, and groups such as Sanggar Matahari (Jakarta) and L'Mus or Laskar Musik (Bandung) put poems to music.

The "sensation of newness" has emerged in the past decade. It is borrowed from French poet Charles Baudelaire's terminology, extended into Theophile Gautier, Paul Verlaine, and Stephane Malarme, who in various ways, broke with the Romantic tradition and attempted "a subjective reconstruction of language".

We have found it as a major theme of modern writers like T.S. Eliot (in poetry), and Henrik Ibsen and Luigi Pirandello (in theater). We also found it in Dostoevsky's psychological novels, and the influence of his writing's methodology can be recognized in the works of Joseph Conrad, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka.

In Indonesia, subjective reconstruction of language by Armijn Pane in prose and Chairil Anwar in poems broke with the tradition of "the late Romantic" Pujangga Baru generation. Armijn Pane's novel, Belenggu (Shackle), departed from the novels of Balai Pustaka and Pujangga Baru while Chairil Anwar's poems established the position of the individualism in poetry. In different times but with the same spirit, Sutardji Calzoum Bachri makes such attempts in his contemporary poems.

This subjective reconstruction of language is also part of Afrizal Malna (b. 1957). While Sutardji applies it by exploring diction drawn out from the mantra tradition, Afrizal does it by exploring diction picked up from the psychologism of the biography of a cosmopolitan man, occasionally called "Afrizalian poetry", and in anomaly patterns originating from his epigons.

Sensation of newness abounds in Agus R. Sarjono (b. 1962), who creates social-critique poems, combining the esthetic style of both Chairil Anwar and Goenawan Mohamad with the tradition of Indonesian modern poetry in order to establish his own new esthetic poetry style (see: Kenduri Air Mata, Celebration of Tears, 1996).

Meanwhile, Soni Farid Maulana (b. 1962) created his social- critique poetry in the vein of W.S. Rendra, and finally also found his own style. His later works, Lagu dalam Hujan (Melody in the Rain, 1996) and Di Luar Mimpi (Outside the Dream, 1997), reach their esthetic maturity. Meanwhile, Acep Zamzam Noor (b. 1960) establishes his "journey poems" in a high esthetic quality, which is especially seen in the numerous poems he wrote during his cultural pilgrimage in Italy.

These four outstanding young poets -- Afrizal Malna, Agus R. Sarjono, Acep Zamzam Noor and Soni Farid Maulana -- represent the rise of a new generation of poets who sought and found their own esthetic poetry style. They have established their prominent position in Indonesian literature today, and are far better known to the public than their predecessors such as Abdul Hadi WM, Leon Agusta, Hamid Jabbar or Slamet Sukirnanto.

The writer is a Bandung-based poet and editor-in-chief of journal of poetry and essays, Renung.