The Way to the Museum

Nirwan Dewanto

Translated from the Indonesian

All eyeballs dipped in the vinegar of the bourgeoisie will become pickled eyeballs.

Tonight I embrace my homeland. Being blind would not matter as long as I could give my eyeballs to you.

I have embraced all the railways and all trains are still on the way to you. I have embraced all the oceans and all ships are still on the way to you. I have embraced all books and all histories are still on the way to you.

They seek my eyeballs so as to be able to see the second revolution.

For years they have been on alert, and the overflow of tears from their eyes has turned to vinegar. You are the tapper. You are the one who readies the holding vessels.

But why do you sharpen your spurs if not to pluck out my eyeballs?

If I become blind tomorrow, you will only be able to sell your vinegar to the proletariat.

Therefore, come this way. Be the eyes for our blind love, me and my homeland. Break your vessels at the Museum of the Revolution, which is only half completed.

Feature Date

February 27, 2024

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Featured Poet

Nirwan Dewanto is a poet, essayist, editor, and arts curator who once wrote, in a note on his poetic quest, “Should a blind swimmer decide whether he is to stop in the middle of the sea or to swim back to the shore? But poetry doesn’t try to resolve the matter. It stops short of that so that emptiness as well as meaning echo between the poet’s blindness and his seeing.” His publications include Jantung Lebah Ratu (The Queen Bee’s Heart; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2008) and Buli-Buli Lima Kaki (The Five-Footed Jug; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2010), both of which received the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa literary prize for poetry; collected prose poems Buku Merah (The Red Book; Penerbit Oak, 2017) and Buku Jingga (The Orange Book; Penerbit Oak, 2018); and collected essays Senjakala Kebudayaan (Culture’s Twilight; Penerbit Oak, 2015), Satu Setengah Mata-Mata (One and a Half Eyes; Penerbit Oak, 2016), and Kaki Kata (Footed Words; Teroka Press, 2020). His most recent publication, Dua Marga (Two Kin; Teroka Press, 2022) was named best poetry book of the year in 2022 by Tempo magazine. His poetry in English translation by John H. McGlynn is collected in Museum of Pure Desire (Lontar, 2017).

Featured Translator

John H. McGlynn is Director or Publications at the Lontar Foundation, a Jakarta-based non-profit organization established in 1987 for the purpose of introducing Indonesia to the world through literary translations. Through Lontar, McGlynn has ushered into print close to 250 books on Indonesian literature and culture containing translations of literary work by more than 650 Indonesian authors.

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Asymptote

July 2023

Taipei City

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