Book Review: ‘Dear Sky’ by Anik Susanti
By: Shafqat Aziz Hajam
The book of poetry titled as’ Dear sky’ has been written by a young Poetess, Anik Susanti. She comes from a village in Gunungkidul and lives in a beautiful city, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
She writes poetry in her native Indonesian language as well as in English. This book has been published by “IA Publisher’ located in Lamongan, East Java, Indonesia.
The cover pages of the book are beautifully designed. The book has been written on 116 pages with 26 poems, some haikus poems and quotes written in English language and rest of the poems are in Indonesian language. The poems I went through and analysed are full of images and some are written metaphorically revealing up the deep and everlasting pains of the Poetess that she experiences for having lost her love unexpectedly.
Poetry lovers and other readers will definitely realize the deep and painful wounds that the Poetess has been experiencing after having been abandoned by the one whom she loved more than herself. I feel, the readers like me, after knowing about the pains being experienced by the Poetess, will feel pity for her and they will certainly wish that her lover comes back to her as the poems are beautifully crafted with smooth flow of heart wrenching ideas.
No randomness is seen anywhere as far as I analysed, and proper diction is found there too. Hope the same beauty and flow of thoughts with proper diction are in the other poems penned down in Indonesian language.
Poetry according to my experience is a piece of writing which has some music in it and gives rise to the emotions, painful or joyful, in its readers. The same thing happens while going through her poetry. The beautifully crafted opening poem of the book is titled as ‘Wordless Mirror’ in which the Poetess conveys a heart wrenching message to her lover that if he abandons her, there will be nothing left for her, no beautiful thing will lessen her stress as she considers him the most beautiful creature on Earth for her.
She says in the poem that like the nature loses its beauty after some disaster similarly, I will feel I have lost everything beautiful and joyful when you abandon me. All the captivating things like the blue sky will seem to me a scary dark one. It means when we lose whom we trust and with whom we expect to enjoy the life, we experience the same thing as experienced by the poetess. Nothing gives us a joy though being more beautiful than what we have lost.
One more beautifully crafted poem in the book on page 11 is titled “The Lost Love”.
Don’t you miss it?
When I say, thank you for loving me.
Don’t you miss it?
Every hour I ask how are you?
This poem definitely pains the reader as in the poem the Poetess reminds her lover of the time when they together enjoyed their life, sharing everything with each other. In this poem the Poetess seems to have been thankful to her lover for loving her. She always thanked her lover for giving her every kind of joy. And have cared for him as every time she asked him about his well being. It means she wanted him to be healthy and free from worries as she loved him as much as he did.
But the separation has pained the Poetess so she reminds him of her love and care for him. Here the Poetess likely feels that her lover’s love for her was fake.
One more beautifully crafted poem on page no 15 is titled as ‘Stay Here’. The poem is nice from the beginning to end. But the last stanza of the poem reveals up the imploration of the Poetess for her lover.
It brings tears into the eyes of the readers who have also gone through such painful conditions.
Let’s continue,
I will follow
Until last breath
In this poem the Poetess implores her lover not to go away from her as he is everything what will give joy to her. She persuades him to continue living with her and says that she will follow or she will be submissive to him till the end of life.
On page 15, there is one more beautiful poem titled as “Powerless paper”
In this room, I am with hundreds
Of books of knowledge,
But none of them give any clue about the knowledge of love.
You are the universe within me.
You are history
You are story.
Briefly I write that here the Poetess sometime sitting in her study room thinks that she has read different books and has obtained knowledge or information about various thing. But no book has given her the clue of love. That means she hasn’t found in any book she has read, anything that could make her understand what the love is. Here she says that she finds no better thing in the books than her lover and considers him her universe, her history and story. Here she likely means that she finds every clue about love in her lover.
On page 17 a beautifully written poem is titled as ‘Smile’
May the beauty always exist here
The adorable smile—–
On your innocent face
Don’t be worried o dear
Because I’m here.
This is an encouraging piece of writing in which the Poetess tells her love that keep on smiling. I wish the charming smile on your face doesn’t vanish. Don’t ever think that I will go away from you. Be happy. I will always stand by you.
The poetry of Anik Susanti has power to impress the readers and make them feel the same pains that she has felt. This is the beauty of poetry. I wish more power to her pen.
(The author writes poems for children)
