Ten Minutes Smoking and Sipping Black Coffee with Indonesian Poet Genius: Chairil Anwar
Imagine you’re in the warung kopi (warkop), and suddenly the person named Chairil Anwar came off to sit down beside you. He styled himself as an indie man with a cigarette ready to be light on. And you only have 10 minutes to talk to him about his poetry. If it was me, I would carefully listen to him while grabbing my hot black coffee, and here we go.
Chairil Anwar, lived only 27 years before national independence declaration, but his works are more immortal than his body. He left the legacy to this country through poetry to fight for freedom, in the context of words and expression. Thanks to him that now Indonesian poetry seems to be more open to diversity and inspire new gen of authors to be brave to write their thoughts to fight for something right, or even just as a form of self-expression like the Chairil did through his poetry.
“Chairil Anwar was one of the most significant figures in the 1945 generation of writers”
Chairil Anwar, As a Nationalist and Literature Heroes
At the age 15, he was determined to be an artist. Even though he did not graduate from junior high school, he was a pure genius in literature (he read literature in German, Dutch, and English) and had a strong drive to learn and create his own kind of ‘art’ against the waves, which he really strongly resisted on, Pujangga Baru.
Why he against Pujangga Baru? Because it’s not originally from Indonesia, the rhyme and verse were adopted from Malay forms. As a broken young man, who came to Jakarta from Medan with his mother, he knew that he was born to be a nationalist and he reflected it to his action, one of it was he refused have any part in pro-Japan propaganda (he did not join Keimin Bunka Shidosho, an artist and cultural community center during Japan occupation.
The Craftsmanship of Chairil
The richness of language that poetry nowadays was the result of the past writers that had bravery to make break-through craft to change and maintain the local-modern aspect of every words they used to speak up their minds and opinions, Chairil Anwar was the one of it. This is the one example, Gurindam 12, a Malay poem:
“Those who pay religion no heed must never be mentioned” (Barangsiapa tiada memegang agama, sekali-kali tiada boleh dibilang kenama)
You know what’s the characteristic of traditional-Malay influence form of poetry? Yes, restrictions and prescriptions. But Chairil looked further than that, he could be angry, he could be critical, and he could be vulnerable in excellent form of poetry. Let’s take a look on these examples:
“I’m a wild animal” (Aku ini binatang jalang)
“This is face full of scars, who has?” (Ini muka penuh luka, siapa punya?)
“Break, you bastard, ripped by your loneliness” (Mampus kau dikoyak-koyak sepi)
His famous poet, AKU, which has controversial lines and straightforward words appeared on my Indonesian language textbook during my elementary school probably more than once, yeah..the kids also read his poetry.
Fun facts: AKU was written as a rejection of his father, when he asked him to leave his mother for better life in Medan
The uniqueness of Chairil’s writing style may come from his hard life experiences and poor adolescences. In summary, his influence comes from two sources:
- First, his innovations in language, which stripped traditional ‘decorative’ and traditionally ‘poetic’ conventions from the Indonesian language.
- Next, his short, perhaps tragic life (born in 1922, he fought hardly against the Dutch colonialism and died of typhus, tuberculosis and syphilis in 1949, when he was only 27 years old, such a young age to die) that coincides with a period of social and political unrest (the end of Japanese rule and the fight for independence from the Dutch) central to the making of modern Indonesia. These poems are translated by Burton Raffel and published in The Voice of the Night: Complete Poetry and Prose of Chairil Anwar (1993).
Through the story of his journey writing those pile of poetry, I see that the poets back in Chairil’s time, had to work so hard to produce good poems that could be accepted.
Chairil Anwar in 21th Century
Truly, his arts still lives in our modern culture until today. His poems appear in Indonesian film, Ada Apa Dengan Cinta 1 and 2 (AADC) in 2002 and 2016 through Rangga and Cinta as the characters who made the poems relevant with Indonesian youngster through romantic storylines. By the way I really like this movie, who does not? Starring my favorite actors, Dian Sastrowardoyo and Nicholas Saputra.
Chairil Anwar’s poems also shows in several places like street walls, museum, pop merchandise, and elementary until high school Indonesian textbook.
That mural made by Sanggar Bambu, located near Kewek Bridge, Kotabaru. Super creative.
Although his poems counted as old art collections for some people (Mostly wrote on 1930ish), now his craftsmanship and passion talks. His fighting spirit and emotion are still alive among us through another shape of arts and it manifests his own line that he wrote in one of his poems that was written,
I want to live for another thousand years - Chairil Anwar, AKU
Oh, my coffee is running out. I need to go back to my house before my mom yells at me. Thanks for hanging out with me, and Chairil for the very short time. See ya again!
