by TS Pinang
very interesting post-afrizal collection of poems. if afrizal’s poems contain words that serve as indexes of the world/semiotic relationships around them, ts (apa itu ts, tanya anak2 buma di antologi buma 1) pinang’s poems are like extended footnotes to these index entries. “kami membaca kulkas dan televisi di selebaran promo diskon belanja, bukan di sajak afrizal malna.” (“seterjal makna”, p.35.) and what “kulkas” and “televisi” mean you find out by reading these poems in kunci. there are four kuncis (chapters) in this book. kunci 1 gives you the key to objects/nouns in the “house” that is ts pinang’s poetry. afrizal wrote a foreword for his “di dalam rahim ibuku ada anjing” called “rumah kata” where he said that “kata seperti sebuah rumah, memiliki ruang luar dan ruang dalam.” semiotically, ruang luar is where words interact/negotiate with things (power structure, economy, etc) outside them and ruang dalam is where those same words cook up their own meaning. probably in the “dapur”, spiced with “bumbu dapur”, fried into “telur dadar” (some of the titles in this collection). kunci 3 gives you the key to the adjectives in ts pinang’s rumah kata, “suram”, “dungu”, “mabuk”, and kunci 4 to the verbs, “mengaso”, “terbang”, “bersepeda”. kunci 2 gives you all the other things that perhaps can’t be categorized so easily, “koran minggu”, “memoar dermaga”, “kuliah pagi”. these extended footnotes are meditative forays into the “ruang dalam” of ts pinang’s “rumah kata”. not as hacep as afrizal’s poems, but it’s unlikely they were ever intended to be so, though afrizal is clearly a big influence (and not just in the short-paragraph(s) form of the poems). they are footnotes, and naturally they’re a bit more sober if not downright “muram”.
Divagyrations 