Of The Soul
Letter from the Guest Editor
When we speak of the ocean, we speak of the soul. In Indonesian, we have found many divine names to bear its beauty: lautan, samudra, segara — some of which you will find, or might call to you, in this issue. With its early and elegant etymology in mind, samudra, is the gathering of water, and does not exclude other bodies of water: a lake, a river, a pool, a glass of water, rainwater cupped between your hands. All of this is a gathering, all of this is a world, in which we are familiar, and includes us in its presence.
The ocean holds centuries of mystery, antiquity, and discovery — and perhaps our life’s work is to decipher its arresting and mystifying presence in our lives. The Indian Ocean, in particular, holds a celestial significance to each of our cultures, languages, and devotions. Within my own Minang culture, we follow the nomadic tradition of merantau, and for most of our lives, we traverse above, through, and across the ocean in search of many belongings. So much of who we are is the ocean that we have inherited and will continue to inherit, as long as the human soul endures.
In Adil Alba’s essay, we follow a journey to Sri Lanka, mapping out the crucial constellation of harbors across history. Pratiwi Juliani’s story threads the border between the real and the imagined, the living and the departed, and the waters that carry us from one world to another. In Raka Ibrahim’s study into Satonda folklore, an earthquake births a crater that holds the water of the ancient rains, and guides the lives of the island.
Muhammad Wahyudi confronts the conflicts along the Straits of Malacca, and inquires to the heart of survival: where do we go when our land has been taken from us? where else do we turn to for refuge, but the ocean? And in Agung Setiawan’s poem, there is an urgent yearning, perhaps even a prayer, that can be found from each piece in this collection: Quickly, let me claim you once more — within these recollections and interpretations of samudra, we see the ocean in every shape, form, and grace.
While creating this issue, we were immensely supported by Portside Review and the range, depth, and spaciousness of their vision. With our utmost gratitude and admiration, we would like to thank Robert Wood and our friends at Portside Review for their tender and wholehearted welcome to their home. They have dared us to think and live and write beyond the defined terrains of the earth, to return our attention to where we belong, to honour the deep and distinct and limitless. After all, the ocean may claim us, but we can never truly claim the oceans.
All we are is its soul.
— Rain Chudori
Words from the Managing Editor
Standing where I stand, sitting where I sit, swimming where I swim, I often think of what it is like where tides and times wash over us differently, of what it would be like if I was born a day later, one country over, or in another decade entirely. It is, of course, to ask the hypothetical by looking at one’s true circumstances. To know that one lives here, stands, sits, swims here, is to ask what one is not, to double one’s life by seeing and sensing how the world goes on, out there, regardless of whether you have noticed or are noticed by others on a distant shore. It is a humbling act if only because it reminds us that we are atoms, small parts of a greater whole.
Something similar could be said for archipelagos in general - islands that make up continents, linkages in presence and absence, of white and black spaces or green and blue as it were, land and ocean. In this issue we consider an archipelago, the Indonesian archipelago, which is also a continent of the mind’s eye, a place with so rich a history, geography, culture that it becomes histories, geographies, cultures, opening up and out in fecund multiplicity, growing like vines, tangled with each other, and over balconies where we can sit and watch the mold rise, the flowers grow, and contemplate what literature is in the here and now. It is then about breaking open the nation from within itself to reveal the local soil.
That might be enough to suggest what Portside Review has always tried to do - to reveal the local, to break open the nation and the nationalism, which would see us resolve to stay in our borders. That has been most present in our sound files from 2021 with activist accounts of those at the margins, those refused entry, those denied what is a basic right - to live freely as a person from no matter where you have arrived. We did this in our first year by having issues with contributors from all around the Indian Ocean, often hearing from ports the whole way over, many continents in a single conversation.
For our second year, of which this is the first issue, we have tried something a little different. A way of coming into and against and within ‘Indonesia’, or ‘Australia’ or ‘India’, through itself, a way of breaking upon by looking at ourselves and not always reaching to connect with someone out there. It is a different act of sovereignty, one that comes from within. Rather than exchange, of speaking across and through borders, we will become liberated by seeing who is really around us, by seeing who we truly are, on a more intimate scale. That means diaspora counts but so does the everyday and the minute, the cricket and frog and ant and petal, not only the jungle they live throughout.
This issue leads the way in this task, takes us into smaller spaces than Portside Review has been been before, leads us into quietude and solitude, and, of course, there very opposites. It has been curated by Rain Chudori who has offered strength, intelligence and dynamism throughout. Rain reaches new audiences, builds voices, creates pathways and opportunities from a hand outstretched with the palm facing upwards, to collect the rain, to greet the sun, to allow us into a world unto itself, where every one is worth more than the sum of their parts. Portside Review owes her a special debt of gratitude, and quite simply, on behalf of our community, a very warm thank you. We hope you read this issue then with Rain’s invitation in mind - to consider what is in our own houses, our own backyards, and our own hearts. Thank you and please share with the ones you love.
— Robert Wood
This issue of Portside Review is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Indonesia Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Rain Chudori is an Indonesian writer, curator, and actress from Jakarta. She is the founder and curator of Comma Books a publishing division under Penerbit KPG. Her works include 'Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories', 'Imaginary City G' and 'Biru dan Kisah-Kisah Lainnya'. Rain's writing explores themes of emotions, identity and body, heritage, space, and the various states of being.
Robert Wood is the Creative Director of Centre for Stories. He has worked for Peril, Cordite, and Liminal, all based in Naarm/Melbourne. The author of more than 300 pieces of literary journalism, Robert is interested in translation, rocks, collaboration, walking, and food. Read more about him here.