Goenawan Mohamad: Selected Poems

This volume contains 65 poems by Goenawan Mohamad, 40 of which have appeared in an earlier form under the same title. It is intended both as a revised and expanded edition (the previous volume consisted of 47 poems) that includes 24 first-time translations.

The occasion of the first edition was, at the risk of sounding anything than an editor should be, to be first and foremost “practical:” to provide the poet with a representative bilingual anthology of his works for the World Poetry Reading at Kuala Lumpur last August, in which he was the keynote speaker. It was published breakneck speed, - that is, less than six weeks -, in which translations were gathered from as many as eight sources: four Indonesian native speakers, one Malaysian, and three Americans. Of the compendium of interpretations that emerged, only the translations by John McGlynn have been published, in various publications by the Lontar Foundation.

Against this backdrop, the first edition was published in cooperation with the Lontar Foundation, with a limited print run that precluded any chance of mass-market distribution. Of the 40 translations that remain in the present volume, 11 that were John McGlynn’s have been replaced with mine. This is done in the normal spirit of newly-minted editions, to introduce new ways of reading.