Poetry International Poetry International
Artikel

Editorial: 15 March 2010

12 maart 2010
In our last issue we welcomed the new USA domain to PIW. This issue marks the launch of an exciting new PIW Indonesia domain, edited by Hasif Amini, and we’re also presenting new poetry from Australia.
In his excellent ‘Brief Introduction to Indonesian Poetry’, Hasif Amini highlights how young Indonesian-language poetry is – its roots were in the 1920s, as the struggle for national independence from colonialism gained strong momentum and Indonesian (an offshoot of Malay) was proclaimed the national language of Indonesia. Despite its youth, however, Indonesian poetry is vibrant, sophisticated, eloquent and diverse, as can be seen from the poems by Sapardi Djoko Damono and Goenawan Mohamad, two active eminences grises of contemporary Indonesian literature whose shaping influence is felt on the country’s poetry today. Goenawan Mohamad’s poems are image-rich interrogations of landscapes imaginary and real, poems such as ‘Pastoral’ glorious in their ellipsis and contemplative sparseness. The selection of Sapardi Djoko Damono’s lyrical poems featured here investigate identity and selfhood as well as language itself: “what do we find beyond words: / a flower garden? deep space? / in the garden, so many things are left unsaid / in space, so stark is the void.” (from ‘Quatrains’)

Alongside the poems, some of which have been translated into English for the first time, we feature speeches by both the poets, and an insightful and thoughtful critical article by Laksmi Pamuntjak about Goenawan Mohamad’s work. PIW is proud to be a platform for these poets and we look forward to future issues from Indonesia.

As well as Indonesian poetry, we also publish work chosen by our Australian editor, Michael Brennan. In recent PIW issues, Michael has presented the work of non-Australian-born poets including Andy Quan, Miriam Wei Wei Lo and Ali Alizadeh. He continues in his representation of the multicultural literary scene of Australia in this issue, which features the work of Wadih Sa’adah, a Lebanon-born poet who writes in Arabic. Through dreamlike metaphor Sa’adeh’s poetry invokes his homeland, and issues of displacement and dispossession: unstitched shadows, dissolved people and disappearing faces are among the images that haunt his moving and probing poems.

Up next:

In the April issues of PIW we’ll be featuring work from the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Japan, Iran and the UK.

If you missed our last issue, featuring the launch of the USA domain, read it here. You can view all past issues of PIW since its beginnings via the {link shortcut="int_editorial_list" title="All Editorials"} link in the left-hand menu.
© Sarah Ream
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère