Passion for poetry breeds good, bad work

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.