Sutardji Calzoum Bachri, known as Tardji, (born 1941 in

Rengat Rengat ( Jawi: رڠات ) is a ''kecamatan'' (subdistrict) in Riau province of Indonesia and it is the capital (seat) of Indragiri Hulu Regency. The WWF keeps a conservation forest (it is named "Bukit Tiga Puluh") near the town, but the conse ...

Riau Riau is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the central eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The province shares land borders with North Sumatra to the northwest, West Sumatra to the west, and Jambi to the south. Accord ...

) is a well-known

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

. A native Malay speaker, he successfully launched a

credo In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical set ...

of 'freeing words of their meanings'. He was nicknamed the "bottle poet" for a preference, early in his career, for accompanying readings of his work with bottles of alcohol. He was also known once as 'The President of Indonesian Poets' His style of reading has been compared to the

incantation An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during cerem ...

-like quality of the old Indonesian ''dukun'', chants stemming from Indonesian pre-Islamic

shamanistic Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...

practice, still used today. The style of Tardji's

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

has been described as that of a ''

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

''. He has been quoted as saying that the ''mantra'' is the true use of words.

References

External links

Profile and works
at the 2004 Poetry Africa Festival website 1941 births Living people People from Indragiri Hulu Regency Indonesian people of Malay descent Indonesian male poets Indonesian writers S.E.A. Write Award winners Place of birth missing (living people) {{Indonesia-poet-stub