Charlie Chaplin di Ngamplang, 1927 / Charlie Chaplin at Ngamplang, 1927

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Ian Campbell

Abstract

‘Charlie Chaplin di Ngamplang, 1927’ is an Indonesian-language poem by Australian poet Ian Campbell, and is a humorous meditation upon certain imaginary events that befell Charlie Chaplin at the Dutch colonial era hill station of Ngamplang in West Java in 1927. In historical terms Chaplin did in fact visit the Dutch East Indies three times between 1927 and 1932, including the area around Ngamplang. The poem was included in Campbell’s poetry and prose collection Tak ada Peringatan (Vivid Publishing, 2013). The Indonesian language version of the poem first appeared in 2012 in the literary pages of the Jakarta mass media daily Kompas. An English-language back translation is included here.

Article Details

Section
Cultural Works: Transitions and Dislocations
Author Biography

Ian Campbell, Department of International Studies, Macquarie University

Ian Campbell, an Honorary Research Associate, Department of International Studies, Macquarie University, NSW, Australia, did his postgraduate research in Indonesian literature and published Contemporary Indonesian Language Poetry from West Java: National Literature, Regional Manifestations (2008) and many journal essays, including in Australia, Indonesia, Germany and the United States.

He writes poetry in Indonesian with publications in Indonesian mass media/literary journals in Jakarta and West Java (2002-2012). An e-collection of his Indonesian language poems appeared as Selatan-Sur-South in PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol 5, No 1 (2008). A chapbook of his collected Indonesian language poetry, Tak ada Peringatan (‘No Warning’), was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Australian Arts in Asia Awards sponsored by a previous Australian Government in 2013.

His current research interests include the literary/cultural afterlife of Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Since 2008 he has also started to write poems in Spanish. (The current segment in PORTAL is the first publication of any of these short poems in Spanish).