Coming to Jakarta: A Poem about TerrorA devastating revelation of violence, exploitation, and corrupt politics, Coming to Jakarta derives its title from the role played by the CIA, banks, and oil companies in the 1965 slaughter of more than half a million Indonesians. A former Canadian diplomat and now a scholar at the University of California, Peter Dale Scott has said that the poem is triggered by what we know of the bloody Indonesian massacre... However it is not so much a narrative of exotic foreign murder as one person's account of what it is like to live in the 20th century, possessing enough access to information and power to feel guilty about global human oppression, but not enough to deal with it. The usual result is a kind of daily schizophrenia by which we desensitize ourselves to our own responses to what we read in the newspapers. The psychic self-alienation which ensues makes integrative poetry difficult but necessary." With a brilliant use of collage, placing the political against the personal - childhood acquaintances are among the darkly powerful figures - Scott works in the tradition of Pound's Cantos, but his substance is completely his own. " |
Contents
Section 1 | 9 |
Section 2 | 11 |
Section 3 | 17 |
Section 4 | 21 |
Section 5 | 23 |
Section 6 | 25 |
Section 7 | 27 |
Section 8 | 29 |
Section 26 | 75 |
Section 27 | 84 |
Section 28 | 84 |
Section 29 | 91 |
Section 30 | 93 |
Section 31 | 97 |
Section 32 | 99 |
Section 33 | 101 |
Section 9 | 31 |
Section 10 | 35 |
Section 11 | 37 |
Section 12 | 41 |
Section 13 | 43 |
Section 14 | 47 |
Section 15 | 49 |
Section 16 | 53 |
Section 17 | 55 |
Section 18 | 57 |
Section 19 | 59 |
Section 20 | 61 |
Section 21 | 63 |
Section 22 | 65 |
Section 23 | 67 |
Section 24 | 69 |
Section 25 | 71 |
Section 34 | 103 |
Section 35 | 105 |
Section 36 | 111 |
Section 37 | 115 |
Section 38 | 117 |
Section 39 | 119 |
Section 40 | 121 |
Section 41 | 129 |
Section 42 | 131 |
Section 43 | 139 |
Section 44 | 141 |
Section 45 | 143 |
Section 46 | 147 |
| 151 | |
Section 48 | 157 |
Section 49 | 158 |
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Common terms and phrases
Allen Allen Dulles American Balinese Bank Berkeley Bhag Blum 65 called Canadian CIA agent CIA's cockfight COMING TO JAKARTA Committee Council on Foreign coup cousin Ibby Covarrubias Czeslaw Milosz Djakarta se acerca Dulles Dusen East Timor F.R. Scott father Fifield Foreign Relations forest Foster friends Geertz 73 Geertz 80 George George Homans Gita gold Hatley Hearings Homans Indonesian Army Italian Superpower John Fairbank kill knew Lake Massawippi Laos later Lockheed look massacre Maylie McGill military million Mosley mother mountains murdered napalm never night North Hatley once P.D. Scott P.D. Scott 85A Peter Dale Scott poem poet Polish pro-Sukarno published R.H. Smith Raleigh Rangda Rothschild Sampson 77 Schurmann Scott 75 shadow play Shaplen shot Shoup Southeast Asia Stanvac and Caltex Suharto Sukarno Sullivan and Cromwell talk terror Vietnam village wajang koelit Washington Westmount wrote Zbigniew Herbert