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Sosiawan Leak: The noisy poet
Courtesy of Siawan Leak From November to mid-December, Sosiawan Leak, a poet from Solo, is accompanying his German counterpart Martin Jankowsi on a poetry reading and discussion tour of several cities in Indonesia
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span class="inline inline-left">Courtesy of Siawan Leak From November to mid-December, Sosiawan Leak, a poet from Solo, is accompanying his German counterpart Martin Jankowsi on a poetry reading and discussion tour of several cities in Indonesia.
Waktoe Publisher and Goethe-Institut Jakarta chose Leak to join a program launching Jankowsi’s latest book in Indonesian, Rabet: Runtuhnya Jerman Timur (Rabet: The Fall of East Germany).
Born Sosiawan Budi Sulistio in Solo (also known as Surakarta), Central Java in 1967, this longhaired man was nicknamed Leak by his high school friends because he frequently “disappeared” for long periods. Upon his return from Bali, they called him Leak, after the island’s mythological monster known to eat human organs. The moniker has since stuck to him.
So why did Goethe Institut handpick him to tour with Janskowsi? Well, it turns out the two have worked together for quite a long time. Leak first met Janskowsi when invited to the “Poetry on The Road” reading session in Bremen, Germany, in May 2003. They were involved in more poetry reading and discussions in Madura, Surabaya, Solo and Kudus (2006). They met again in “Membaca Kota-kota” (Reading Cities) in 2008, in Pati, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Purwokerto, Wonosobo, Indramayu, Kediri and Surabaya.
Leak started writing poetry in the 1980s as a contemporary of Wiji Thukul, whose fate has remained unknown since he disappeared under the New Order regime.
According to Leak, Wiji wrote poetry at a dangerous time. It certainly didn’t help his works took a mostly sarcastic and critical approach to irregularities in state affairs during the Soeharto regime.
Leak’s poetic diction is seen as vulgar and derived from daily life. In Negri Kadal (Lizard Country), he writes: negri yang bersemak rempah/berbelukar bahan tambang/bererimbun hutan/namun selalu lapar/dengan pertikaian dan asap tebal/dari berbagai kayu bakar; agama, harta dan kekuasaan (a country with bushes of spices/with shrubs of minerals/with dense foliage of forests/yet it always starves/with strife and thick smoke/of numerous wildfires, of religion, wealth and power.
“My poems are not a beautiful juxtaposition of words. I can’t write verses in inscrutable language. Many people say my words are not poetic. It’s OK as long as my audience understands what they mean,” said the father of two at his home in Solo.
In Leak’s view, poetry is not a sedative but rather an emotional expression honed by social sensitiveness. It is thus not only personal in nature but also represents its environment.
He doesn’t want to be a normative artist bound by certain conventions. He just wants to be honest when expressing himself, in a world he describes as a messy and lacking in morality.
The self-taught poet calls this world “bogambola”, which is also the title of his poetry anthology he has read on campus grounds in Surabaya, Solo, Kudus and Semarang.
He tends to present his poetry in an adlib way. His readings come across as story telling, interspersed with yells to a percussion accompaniment, making his presentation noisy yet attractive and entertaining.
On stage, he is used to reading while dancing and jumping around. Unsurprisingly, he has now been dubbed a “noisy poet”.
“My poetry comes alive beyond the text, because reading poems is also a show,” said the bard, who frequently declaims his works on campuses. His narration style, he claimed, can be traced to his close connection with an oral tradition since childhood.
He used to be stunned by the narrating capability of wayang kulit (shadow puppet) players, staging dialogues between their wayang characters. He was astonished by the way dalang (puppet players/masters) enlivened the dialogues rather than the stories told.
“Up to now I continue to admire dalang for their ability to spice up the characters and the atmosphere through their monologues, out of which my declamation was born. This turns my poems into oral narratives instead of mere verses to read,” he said.
Leak also has music in his blood, particularly keroncong (Indonesian pop music with a tinge of Portuguese), as his father was an adept cello player in an orchestra and frequently played on Radio Republik Indonesia, Solo.
Little Leak always followed his dad during radio broadcasts. Besides, he grew up with ketoprak (a play based on Javanese history and legends). With his house close to Taman Sriwedari (art center), he used to watch ketoprak and wayang almost every night.
“While in junior high school I learned to play the guitar. As I mastered the skill I joined the
school theater group,” recalled the husband of Ari Priharyati, an Indonesian language teacher in a junior high school.
So he was caught up in the theater craze and became an actor in two major theater groups in Solo, Teater Gidag-Gidig and TERA (Teater Surakarta). In college, he joined Teater Keliling (Jakarta) to support his study expenses.
He reached his acting peak when he set up his own group, Kloearga Sedjahtera (Klosed), Solo.
“With Teater Keliling I played for oil companies, receiving big pay cheques, so I could afford to pay college tuition fees,” said the graduate of social and political sciences of Solo’s Sebelas Maret State University (UNS).
However, when he started making a living out of theater, he shifted to poetry, because he felt free to write and express himself in this medium.
“I’m not abandoning theater. It’s collective work, so it’s an activity where we depend on others. When I write poetry, I work independently, and have an outlet to express myself freely,” said Leak, who according to the late Rendra, Indonesia’s distinguished poet and playwright, belongs to the New Wave group.
Leak, who has often appeared alongside poet Dorothea Rosa Herliany, described present-day poems as far more spirited but frequently incongruous with life. Many of today’s verses have been created through books instead of deeds or actual experience.
“Poets are not observers… They have to experience real life, because the main material to create poetry is the prevailing situation. Books, television and the Internet only come later,” stressed the poet, who in 2002 followed the Indonesian International Poetry Festival along with his peers from several countries.
Lately, Leak has been preparing for next year’s international events including a Literary Discussion on the Works of Nietzsche (February) and Poetry On The Road Festival (June), both in Bremen.
In October he attended the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali with 144 literary figures from 24 countries.
