Sitor, a poet driven by wanderlust and yearning

Sitor, a poet driven by wanderlust and yearning

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor/Jakarta

Sitor Situmorang celebrates his 80th birthday today (Saturday).
Unbelievable! When told he doesn't look his age, he smiles.

His eyes twinkle, he runs up stairs, he has a cane that he
hardly ever needs to lean on -- Sitor is even more youthful than
before.

And his smile is charming, so that, without speaking his mind,
he gives the impression that he is utterly absorbed.

He was born in Harianboho, a village by Lake Toba in the north
of Sumatra -- a place that was to fill his heart forever.

He was the chief of his tribe, although an absent one, a raja
who left his wife and children to wander the seven seas, a
journalist turned poet, a man of letters once jailed then freed
without trial, and celebrated around the world.

He was a journalist in Medan, Jakarta and Yogyakarta in the
days of the Revolution and among the thinkers of that time who
were obsessed by change. He was a proponent of a national culture
but inspired both by the culture of this archipelago and other
lands.

Sitor worked for various government institutions, and was
involved in both political and cultural activities. He visited
distant lands to attend meetings and conferences and made himself
heard with his characteristic eloquence.

He also published numerous poems, in various anthologies.

Some of his works, including The Green Paper Letters (1953),
The Wall of Time, Travel Guide, Dalam Sajak (In Verse), Wajah Tak
Bernama (Face Without a Name), The Rites of the Bali Aga, To Love
to Wander, Paris La Nuit and Lembah Kekal (The eternal valley),
are the expression of a man obsessed by a love and wanderlust
that nurtured his yearning for the traditions of his ancestors.

Sitor was born on 2 October 1924, the son of Ompu Babiat, the
leader of the Situmorang clan and a bureaucrat from Harianboho
district, who claimed to be a direct descendant of Sumba and
Lontung, the ancestors of the Bataks.

Ompu Babiat, who had resisted Dutch intrusion, lived to see
his village burned down and his people forced to settle in the
valley of the Pusuk Buhit mountain range, the center of the
universe in Batak mythology.

Sitor was sent to Dutch schools in Sibolga, Balige and
Tarutung, where Christian hymns and sermons mingled with the
sound of Malay, which had become the everyday language of the
people.

But, as he was introduced to Western culture, and traveled the
world, he took with him the image of his mother: She carried a
barely one-year-old baby in a sling, close to her body, like many
women of this awe-inspiring culture.

She always took me with her, even when she performed ritual
dances, he said, referring to the traditions that became familiar
to him in his formative years, and were never to leave him.

His poetry, whether it talks of daily life, faraway places,
love affairs or spiritual reflection, is driven by reverence and
a primeval depth.

As his 80th birthday evokes a variety of analyses of his
works, many will remember Sitor, not as a tribal chief or
preeminent poet, but as a man with a cane he hardly used.

Happy Birthday Sitor, and long may your poetry continue to
take us to other realms!

Six continents,
The seven seas I've traveled
Which is the most beautiful?

The answer has long been known
With no need to ask
The most beautiful country is your loyalty
Where my journey once started
In the depths of the sea of longing