Rendra brings late Chairil Anwar's poems to life

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): The stage was decorated modestly. An ornamental electricity pole stood in the right corner; a half dozen white drums lined the white backdrop in the left corner; and several white sandbags lay in front of the electricity pole.

In the middle of the stage was noted poet Rendra, clad in blue denim, reading poems.

Every now and then during the reading, the backdrop was changed to a picture of a blue sky with white clouds.

It was a rare night. This time, Rendra did not read his own ballads but the works of Chairil Anwar.

The poetry reading was held to commemorate the death of the legendary poet 47 years ago. It lasted for three days, from April 27 to 29 at the Graha Bakti Hall at Taman Ismail Marzuki Art Center.

The event was very important, and rare in that no less than Minister/Secretary of State Moerdiono, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro and several noted businesspeople attended the first night.

Special shows were also arranged on April 28 and 29 for students, who attended on discounted tickets. Students paid just Rp 5,000, half the regular price.

Rendra's performance was, as usual, all but flawless. Nicknamed "Peacock" for his flamboyance, Rendra is considered Indonesia's best poet in decades, as well the founder of the tradition of poetry reading in the country. His performances always work magic and draw thousands of people, as that night's show did.

If any people felt bored that night it was not due to Rendra's performance, but rather because of the material he read. Rendra usually reads his long ballads, which he not only peppers with effective sounds, lamentation and deep reflection but also humor, social criticism and irony. They are also good stories. The world he writes of in his poems is something an audience can identify with. Thus, Rendra's readings always touch his audiences, alternately making them laugh, feel grief and anger.

Different world

That night, however, there were no ballads, no laughter, no anger. He read the poems by Chairil Anwar, who lived half a century ago when Indonesia was struggling to gain and defend its independence. Rendra as such took his audience into a different world. His main intention didn't seem to entertain his fans; rather, he asked them to remember the legendary poet and muse over the rich legacy he left Indonesia's modern culture.

Chairil Anwar was the pioneer of the Generation of 1945 literary movement. The movement was born before and matured after Indonesia declared independence in 1945. The importance of the authors of the movement to Indonesian modern culture, especially to the country's literary world, lies in the fact that they witnessed and documented the fervor, fear, struggle, despair and dreams of Indonesians during the turbulent years. As it were, they documented what was in the hearts and minds of the country's founding fathers.

Chairil Anwar died of a lung disease at the age of 27 on April 28, 1949, and was buried in the Karet cemetery in Central Jakarta. Born in Medan on July 22, 1922, he penned 94 works throughout his short career, comprising 70 original poems, four adapted poems, 10 translated poems, six original proses and four translated proses. All the works were read by Rendra during the show.

As short as his life may have been, the dream he expressed in the last line of Me, his most famous poem, I want to live another thousand years may well come true.

His works have been acknowledged here and abroad as the best of the Generation of 1945 movement in that they express the spirit of the period. They have been translated into several languages.

Burton Raffel, American poet and professor in English literature in many universities in the U.S., who translated Chairil's works and published them in 1993 in Voice of the Night. Complete Poetry and Prose of Chairil Anwar, calls him "Indonesia's only unqualifiedly great poet".

In Indonesia, many people start memorizing Chairil's best works, including Me, Prayer, Fir Trees in Rows, in junior high school.

Rendra knows Me by heart. He read the poem twice, in the middle and at the end of the show. Closing the one-and-a-half- hour show, without looking at the text at all, he recited the poem in a shaky and feeble voice as if to depict someone reluctantly facing death:

When my time comes

I want to hear no one's cries

nor yours either

Away with all who cry!

Here I am, a wild beast

Driven out of the herd

Bullets may pierce my skin

But I'll keep on,

Carrying forward my wounds and my pain

Attacking

Attacking

Until suffering disappears

And I won't care anymore

I want to live another thousand years.

(from Burton Raffel's translation)

Death frequently appears in Chairil Anwar's poems. He often mentioned his own death as if he had a premonition he would die young. His reflection on the death of freedom fighters who died during the war brought about a fine poem, Krawang-Bekasi. Although critics have proven that it is not his original work but an adaptation of the poem by Archibald Mac Leis, Indonesians still regard it as the best literary work on heroism and horror during the country's revolutionary war. People recite the poem in every official ceremony to commemorate their heroes.

Sometimes Chairil Anwar denounced death strongly, as best shown through Me. Sometimes, he felt hopeless, lonely and close to giving up. Fir Trees in Rows best describes the loneliness.

Fir trees straggle into the distance

I feel day becoming night

There are branches poking at the tiny window

Pushed by some unseen wind

.........

Life only puts off defeat

Extending further and further from simple puppy love

As we learn there's always something unsaid

Before, finally, we give it all up

(from Burton Raffel's translation)

The spirit of freedom is strong throughout his works. He did not only speak about freedom from colonialism, freedom from death, etc., but he used a free literary style. He was the first poet here to abandon the old style of Indonesian poetry, which emphasized rhyme. His style had freedom. As long as it produced fine and beautiful poems, he was ready to neglect any principles of traditional Indonesian poetry. The only principle he followed was beauty.

In one way of speaking, the spirit of freedom can also be seen in his work Jesus Christ. It is a different kind of freedom. Chairil Anwar was a Moslem, but that did not prevent him from writing a poem about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. To Chairil Anwar as well as all other founding fathers of the country, such things as religion, ethnicity and race could not allow them to be narrow-minded, or allow them to practice group-centeredness.

The poem, dedicated to true Christians, is fine and touching; no Christian in this country has been able to make a finer one.

This Body

Bleeding

Bleeding

Fallen

Broken

Floats up a question: am I to blame?

I see the bleeding Body

And what I see in the blood is: me.

Reflected brightly in the eye of time

This will change form soon

Close its wounds

I am glad

This Body

bleeding

bleeding

(from Burton Raffel's translation)

Each year, Indonesians commemorate the death of Chairil Anwar and read his poems from new perspectives. His works will continue to become a source of inspiration for Indonesians for another thousand years.