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