…I like those who go and confront the night

THESE days, when people worry that poetry is becoming unruly and art is not devout, let me call upon Chairil Anwar. He died aged only 27 on April 28, 1949. The important parts of his life were intense, passionate, thunderous, and chaotic.

A note he scrawled on a scrap of paper runs: “wisdom + insight not enough, must stimulate energy + enthusiasm.”

Chairil did not want to have just wisdom and i