Nirwan Dewanto

Nirwan Dewanto is a poet, essayist, editor, and arts curator who once wrote, in a note on his poetic quest, “Should a blind swimmer decide whether he is to stop in the middle of the sea or to swim back to the shore? But poetry doesn’t try to resolve the matter. It stops short of that so that emptiness as well as meaning echo between the poet’s blindness and his seeing.”

His publications include Jantung Lebah Ratu (The Queen Bee’s Heart; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2008) and Buli-Buli Lima Kaki (The Five-Footed Jug; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2010), both of which received the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa literary prize for poetry; collected prose poems Buku Merah (The Red Book; Penerbit Oak, 2017) and Buku Jingga (The Orange Book; Penerbit Oak, 2018); and collected essays Senjakala Kebudayaan (Culture’s Twilight; Penerbit Oak, 2015), Satu Setengah Mata-Mata (One and a Half Eyes; Penerbit Oak, 2016), and Kaki Kata (Footed Words; Teroka Press, 2020). Nirwan Dewanto’s most recent publication, Dua Marga (Two Kin; Teroka Press, 2022), which includes the three poems featured in this issue, was named best poetry book of the year in 2022 by Tempo magazine. His poetry in English translation by John H. McGlynn is collected in Museum of Pure Desire (Lontar, 2017).¹

1. Asymptote Journal ↩