Poets share legacy of courage

Poets share legacy of courage

Acehnese poets Rosni Idham, D. Kemalawati and Azhari took to the
open-air Balinese stage of Puri Saraswati on the evening of Oct.
7 in Tribute to Aceh, the opening event of the Ubud Writers and
Readers Festival (UWRF) 2005.

The poets were accompanied by Robin Lim of Bali-based Yayasan
Bumi Sehat, a midwife, maternity and birthing care foundation
working on a social rehabilitation project in Nanggroe Aceh
Darussalam. Lim also read her poems, inspired by her experiences
in the field.

Illuminated by a slide show of tsunami survivors, each poem
was read first in Bahasa Indonesia, followed by a direct
translation into English provided by the festival's Balinese
translator, Kadek Krishna Adidharma.

An audience of about 150, sitting in the folding chairs
provided or on the bare stone pavement, listened solemnly as a
people's history of prolonged suffering and grief -- yet also
their strengths, triumphs and hopes -- unfolded in words and
images.

In addition to their own work, D. Kemalawati read a piece by
fellow Acehnese poet Maskirbi, who perished along with his entire
family in the tsunami of December 2004. Her voice resonating with
emotion in the final stanzas, several people were moved to tears
by the performance.

"I have written only a few poems on the tsunami," said Azhari,
who closed the reading. "The tsunami is only a small part of
Aceh's history. Aceh is also about 100 years of conflict."

Whether on the Acehnese conflict or on the tsunami, the poetry
was clearly bound by a common underlying quality so that the
performance, in essence, became a tribute to the resilience of
the human spirit. -- Chisato Hara