Coming to Jakarta: A Poem about Terror

by Peter Dale Scott

"Not since Robert Duncan's  Ground Work  and before that William Carlos Williams'  Paterson  has New Directions published a long poem as important as  Coming to Jakarta !" ―James Laughlin A 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.

Genres: Poetry

164 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 1988

Reviews

[Kia]

Even more pertinent now, over three decades after its publication. What are we to do, faced with the knowledge of the brutality of the American empire’s crimes? How can I live a contented life knowing all that I know—and I hardly know anything? “You and I are not designed for the world we now live in.”

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I like the premise to this long poem quite a bit, but in execution I find it challenging to comprehend. In short, this is about growing up in extreme wealth and the ways in which that wealth shaped Western foreign influence during the 60s. Peter Dale Scott’s primary interest as an intellectual is the formation of the “deep state” - but not in the way the far right utilized the term, exactly.

The first portions of this book chart his childhood among the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. Already I can’t see this being seen as favorable, but these sections are the most comprehendable. Between and after this, Scott uses his experience as a foreign diplomat and collages documentation of war crimes into his work. Problem is, I can hardly understand what he is saying, even if I believe that what he is saying is an accurate depiction of influencing war crimes.

He’s clearly brilliant, and this book made me consider how the left’s “capitalism” and the right’s “deep state” may just be speaking to the same problem with different ends. What this poem means, however, is a bit beyond me. I enjoyed the experience of reading it however.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read this. It’s an interesting, odd piece. The author tells a story through a book length poem. It is the story of his family. It is the story of this country. It is the story of Jakarta. It is the story of the way family and power have worked at the highest levels of our society and world. I’m impressed by how he has told the story. The use of the same form throughout the book was a little distracting - but it worked for him nonetheless. He told the story and he told it well…and it made me think about how I tell stories.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"and I have since believed
in the face of
every nuclear headline

the force flooding those
millions of high trees
even in the frost of night

will survive the next war
whether or not we do"

THE political poem of the 20th century. No one talks about our world through power, history, terror, war and politics like Peter Dale Scott, who is one of my favorite authors academic wise. I'm gonna need to read this one multiple times to really absorb such a sublime work. I admire him so much for translating his emotional and political work into poetry, my type of guy.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply the most important book of poetry ever written. The history of the 20th century is contained within its covers, beautifully & devastatingly interwoven with Dr. Scott's own life and the Gospel of Thomas, Bhagavad Gita, and work of Ezra Pound.

If you want to understand how and why we are so deeply trapped in cycles of exploitation and degradation, track down a copy, and follow the footnotes if you need.

[D P · Rating 4 out of 5]

will revisit

[Noah Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome Marxist schizo poetry

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very inspiring book. A book about terror, the terror imposed upon the world by the empire of the United States of America. It is written in poetic form, an epic poetic form, something that is extremely powerful. But jut because it is in this form do not think it has not been exhaustively researched.

This is book one of a trilogy by Peter Dal Scott.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poem got me into writed mixed genre and academic poetry. Very powerful way to portray truth.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

quite intricate and detailed, deserves a second read ... and some research

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a poem about terror. Interesting