By Multicultural Press team
In the variety of Southeast Asian literature, Anwar Putra Bayu stands out as a compelling voice, a poet, dramatist, and cultural activist whose works go far beyond the borders of his native Indonesia. Born on June 14, 1960, in Medan, North Sumatra, Anwar has devoted his life to the pursuit of art, literature, and social change. His poetry, often layered with solitude, existential inquiry, and social critique, offers a vivid window into both the individual awareness and collective memory of his nation. Despite challenges and the absence of formal tertiary education, Anwar’s self-taught artistic path is both inspiring and enduring.
Growing up as the youngest child of Drs. Bahauddin and Siti Amnah, Anwar’s early years took him from Jakarta to Medan and later to Palembang, where he eventually settled. Although he once wanted to study at the Jakarta Institute of Arts (IKJ), familial disagreement led him to forge his own artistic path, a decision that would end in a deeply rooted, community-focused literary career. Since founding Teater SAS in 1980 and Teater Potlot in 1984, Anwar has balanced the friendly lyricism of poetry with the public engagement of theater, producing works such as Wong-wong (awarded Best Script in South Sumatra in 1987), as well as directing renowned plays by Molière and Aristophanes.
His poetry, featured in more than 60 literary anthologies, is both politically aware and emotionally meaningful. The two poems recently shared, “It’s Better to Delay My Journey” and “Window 223”, illustrate the multi-layered identity that defines Anwar’s writing: the inner exile, the observer of power, the seeker of connection, and the spiritual traveller.
In “It’s Better to Delay My Journey,” the poet positions himself first as a medieval European, a figure standing at a port, waiting for a boat that may never arrive. This deliberate displacement suggests a timeless, borderless quality to his existential pondering. The ocean, described as “still clear and quiet / just like no life in it,” becomes a metaphor for emotional and societal immobility. The death of a journalist, “a columnist / was lying dead in some sewer / a bullet has made a hole in his head”, reflects the grim intersection of politics and personal loss. The poem ends not in resolution, but in suspension, a traveller who chooses not to travel, a poet without an ocean, without a boat. In that emptiness, Anwar gains a deeply human truth: sometimes, delay is survival.
“Window 223” reads more like a lyrical fable, drawing from nature and folklore. A journey to find water becomes a spiritual cleansing. The poet meets a female apple farmer mourning an “unfertilized garden”, a symbol of lost fertility, unfulfilled dreams, or social disillusionment. Together, they wash themselves not with water, but tears, in the mythical Coban Rondo, a place that, in Javanese lore, is associated with tragic love and longing. Their names are carved into pine trees, echoing the timelessness of folk rituals and the ache of impermanence. In the final stanza, the poet is “always followed by lady / while lady’s followed by her own tear of lies”, a powerful metaphor for cyclical sorrow, memory, and regret.
Anwar’s work belongs unmistakably to a multicultural, postcolonial literary tradition, one that dialogues with both local myth and global experience. He writes in Indonesian but suggests shared human conditions, making his poetry accessible and spreading beyond borders. His references, from the Qur’an to Western classical drama, reflect his intellectual openness and literary ability.
Outside of the written word, Anwar Putra Bayu is an active participant in Indonesia’s cultural evolution. He has worked as a journalist and cultural editor for Media Guru and Dinamika, and co-founded NGOs such as Forum Studi Kebudayaan Kali Musi and Yayasan Kuala Merdeka. In 1999, he chaired the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPPDA) in South Sumatra, signalling his commitment to civic responsibility through art.
His influence continues to grow, not just in academic circles, where his poetry has been analysed in relation to Qur’anic intertextuality and social criticism, but also in popular media. His poem “Catatan Pagi” has been adapted into song, making his work available to a broader, often younger audience.
Ultimately, Anwar Putra Bayu is not merely a poet of Indonesia; he is a poet of the modern condition, at once grounded in place and infinitely expansive in reach. Whether meditating beside a still ocean or journeying through fruit valleys with a sorrowful stranger, his verse invites us into a world where pain is poetic, solitude is sacred, and activism is inseparable from art.
In a global literary landscape hungry for authentic multicultural voices, Anwar’s poetry reminds us that while the journey may be delayed, the witness must remain, steady, unsilenced, and profoundly human.
It’s Better to Delay My Journey
(Anwar Putra Bayu)
That’s why tonight
i look like the European poet of the middle age
:stand on the side of that port
while waiting for boat to come
and then leave. For that direction.
The ocean still clear and quite
just like no life in it
It’s better like this
reading some evening papers: a coloumnist
was lying dead in some sewer
a bullet has made a hole in his head
i just found out that three days ago
he wrote about some party leader
Ough, this town is always unfriendly
After that night
i can’t make myself even better tonight
like always, there’s an empty room in me
That ocean still quite
it’s better to delay my jouney
to that island. Night walke side by side with me
emtyness and emptyness
enter the town.
Now that is why
i am a poet of nowday age
stands in the middle of my doubt
there is no acean
there is no boat
Still it’s better
for me to stay here
just here: though it’s always empty
Window 223
(Anwar Putra Bayu)
That poet went down the valleys
passed some fruit fair, gardens. And inns
then traight to the east
searching for some source of water
to wash his body
On some slope
there was a female apple farmer
sobbing without tear
for unfertilized garden
“my lady, where on earth do you go. Is there any water here?”
She made faces and walked off
to the sun for it begun to sink
and the poet followed her.
Poet and lady
washed theirself with tear
dived pudle of Coban Rondo
then on some pine trees
they engraved their namnes and dates of birth.
Sky was clean when birds went home
sun was getting old
poet and lady looked for an hotel
to spend a night.
each were dreamed about valleys and aplle trees
splased by tear of life
And now poet’s always followed by lady
while lady’s followed by her own tear of lies.