Author: Austral-Indonesian Tujuhbelasan

Pepohonan #4 Jaya Tree Poetry

When poetry goes from one language to anohter it has to change to remain poetry.

I call this transcreation,

Dwijaya Saifil Munir sent me a wonderful spontaneous poem about the holiness of trees.

I transcreated it into English.

Then in performance I transcreated those lines into a homage to a big city garden tree.

I then transcreated that into a partial reconstruction of the original Indonesian poem in the subtitles.

As Paul McCartney wrote about his landmark indie album, Wings’ Wild Life, “Can you dig it?”

Geoff Fox, 17th February, 2021 Terra Nullius

Sustainable Development #16 Personal Survival in The Culture War

Cultural Warrior Philipp Zey travelled around the world on a bicycle with a trombone, a golf club and a German pasta shaper.

He shared music, his golf swing and pasta meals using locally available ingredients with hosts and new friends in the cause of peace, understanding and freedom across and up and down Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and Africa.

It is unlikely that anyone in the world has ever played didgeridoo on a trombone down a drain in Australia better than Philipp Zey did for my camera just because I asked him to.

Aboriginal elder the late Aunty Dot Peeters said his playing was “excellent”.

Geoff Fox, February 1 , 2021, Terra Nullius

The Fundamentals #9 Managing Our Times

Amanda Woods of San Diego is young and smart.

I am older. But I learn from and with her.

Martin Luther King Jr, born on this date in 1929 taught that “…… the wealth of cultural and technological progress in America is a result of the commonwealth of inpouring contributions.”

This human commonwealth exists across races, times and places.

When it is shared in freedom and justice, it can grow.

When it become tyrannous, it dies.

Geoff Fox, 16th January, 2021, Terra Nullius

Literary Tujuhbelasan #12 The Children

The Indonesian text here is an edited version of a quote from a Rumi inspired passage in the book “Mamonisme” by Maman A Majid Binfas of Jakarta. It means “Give a home to their bodies but not to their souls. Their souls reside in the future.”

My English lines are inspired by an American equivalent of Rumi, country singer Paul Siebel.

Lest we forget: children can unite us.

Without them our world dies.

Geoff Fox 31st December 2020 Down Under