Poetry helps leaders articulate people's dreams: Professor

Dewi Santoso, Jakarta

Poetry does not necessarily belong to artists, but leaders too, as their keen interest in poetry will help them ascertain and understand people's needs and dreams, a newly installed professor says.

Aloisius Agus Nugroho said in his inauguration as Atma Jaya Catholic University professor of philosophy on Wednesday that leaders with no appreciation of literature, music or poetry would not have the ability to sense people's aspirations.

"Therefore, they should just step down as they will face difficulty in understanding and living up to people's dreams," he said.

Aloisius is the first professor in Atma Jaya's school of administrative science.

"If leaders develop an interest in poetry, they will develop their human side, an adherence to democracy instead of authoritarianism, and thus turn 'chaos' into cosmos'," said Aloisius, referring to Shakespeare's work, The taming of chaos, which inspired him to connect poetry and power.

Poetry-illiterate leaders, according to Aloisius, would fail to govern their people as they would have lost the "poetic imagination" of unity, forcing them to resort to violence and cruelty.

"Leaders who easily turn to violence can be perceived as those who do not understand the important role poetry can play in their use of power," he said.

He insisted that in the postmodern era it was power that ruled bureaucrats, and not the other way around.

He suggested that the current leaders avoid dependence on the paradigm of control, order and predict to rule and push, but on poetic attraction, which pulls.