Iman Budhi Santosa, an Indonesian poet published by Flying Island in 2015, passed away in December 2020. He had dedicated his life to mentor countless creative writers and poets in Yogyakarta, Indonesia since 1969. Iman is known as one of the street poets in Yogyakarta, actively writing poems and plays even in the three-year period when he was homeless and lived in the streets. His poems, both in Indonesian and Javanese, generally revolves around Javanese culture and urban life. To commemorate his contribution, a book called Iman Budhi Santosa: Sebuah Obituari will be published and launched in March 2021.
Before a nameless tomb (translated from Indonesian by Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang and Kit Kelen)
I cowered next to you
no need for an introduction
you ran out of relatives
while I was still looking for an address
you’re a book
I’ve just written the first paragraph
you’re moss, I’m grass
in the open field
Di sebuah makam tanpa nama
Sesekali aku berjongkok di sampingmu tanpa harus berkenalam dan merasa perlu
Engkau kehabisan kerabat aku mencari sebuah alamat
Engkau buku aku baru menulis paragraf satu
Engkau lumut, aku rumput di sini semua patut disebut
In China (when I lived there) in restaurants it was normal a 1/4 acre of food it all arrives the same time everyone got one bite hot before it’s cold spins on the table and faster in winter always the hilarity excess and waste of everything plastic bags and containers out before they left gone before you knew it
Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang was a nomad writer and translator before finally settling in in Southern Sweden. He started writing professionally – as a journalist – at an early age of 12, mainly motivated by an innocent wish of seeing his name printed in newspaper. After writing a number of short stories for various newspapers, he published two novels in 2006.
In 2013, he got involved with Flying Islands and started translating Iman Budhi Santosa’s poems (Faces of Java) into English. He was then granted Indonesian government funding for a poetry translation project in 2015. His own collection of bilingual poems, Encounters: Never Random, was published in 2017 by Flying Islands.
He is currently teaching Creative Writing in Malmö University, Sweden and at the same time trying to get back to a poet mode. His latest works, translations of three children’s books from Danish to Indonesian, are coming in March 2021.
watching fado in Macao
old fortress under moon that blooms
gentle sea breeze of a humid October night
husky contralto belting the ballad out
from her throat deep the waves
in which we swim ears least perhaps
this is rhythm all in the chest
where memory is found
because of the words all out of language
because as the singer says this is heart’s translation
Steven Schroeder is a poet and painter who lives and works in Chicago. More at stevenschroeder.org.
A Suicide Flower
A cadre of hibiscus revolutionaries gather in the hedges along this busy street, lie low to creep beneath the iron fence set up to separate them from masses moving at the speed of money. Here and there a suicide flower throws herself into the crowd, detonates the red she has strapped to her body,
sends a shock of useless beauty lying exposed through a city of desire
Judy Johnson has published five full length collections and several chapbooks. Her books have won the Victorian Premier’s Award and been shortlisted in both the NSW and WA Premier’s Awards. She’s been awarded the Wesley Michel Wright Prize 3 times. Her latest collection is ‘Dark Convicts'(UWA publishing, 2017) a poetic exploration of her African American First Fleet convict ancestors. Her Flying Islands publication is ‘Exhibit’, 2013.
Chris Song is a poet, translator and editor based in Hong Kong. He has published four collections of poetry and many volumes of poetry in translation. Song received an “Extraordinary Mention” at Italy’s UNESCO-recognized Nosside World Poetry Prize 2013. He won the Young Artist Award at the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. In 2019, he won the 5th Haizi Poetry Award. Song is now Executive Director of the Hong Kong International Poetry Nights, Editor-in-Chief of Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, and associate series editor of the Association of Stories in Macao. He also serves as an Arts Advisor to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
His flying island pocketbook, mirror me, was published in 2017.
KA Rees writes poetry and short fiction. Her poems and short stories have been included by Australian Poetry, Cordite Poetry Review, Kill Your Darlings’ New Australian Fiction anthology, Margaret River Press, Overland, Review of Australian Fiction, Spineless Wonders and Yalobusha Review, among others.
Kate was shortlisted for the 2016 Judith Wright Poetry Award, she was the recipient of the 2017 Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction and runner-up in the 2018 Peter Cowan Short Story Award. She was a 2019 Varuna fellowship holder for her manuscript of short stories and the national winner of the 2019 joanne burns Microlit Award.
Kate is an inaugural participant in the 2021 Sydney Observatory Residency Program where she is writing the beginnings of her second collection of poetry on the Nocturn, and some of the more peculiar aspects of Sydney’s histories.
