This one was definitely not a break, though. (Pun sadly intended.)
It’s funny how things
work out sometimes. I left my job as a staff writer/editor to go solo without
knowing where or how to begin. I guess I had a vague idea of what I could do
with my hitherto suppressed ambitions, but I couldn’t settle on an idea for a
project. Panic naturally ensued. The thing I wanted to avoid most—even more
than that terrifying thing called writer’s block—was a hiatus. I wanted to
avoid it because unlike writer’s block, a hiatus is actually avoidable; all you
need to do is work.
It was at the suggestion
of Max Suriaganda, a friend and former colleague, that I started to put together
a collection of my own poems. Writing poems was not new to me, but it had, up until two
days ago, been a private hobby. So yes, the whole process was pretty nerve-racking.
By the time I decided to
begin the project, I had already set aside a number of older poems I wanted to
include in the collection. Taking a mission-oriented approach in poetry proved
to be more difficult than I’d imagined, but my goal was to release my first book
before I had to get myself a new calendar. The mission went on for several
months. In October, I sent my final draft to Max, who then came up with a sleek
design concept for the book.
Hiatus is not divided into strict themes even though there were
certain topics (faith, love, etc.) that I kept coming back to—personal
obsessions, I suppose—so I put the poems in chronological order instead (the first
poem was written in December 2013, the last in September 2014). On December 21, 2014, Hiatus was finally launched at the Studio1212 & Whiteboard
Journal Headquarters in Kemang, Jakarta.
During the process of writing this book, I learned that it's possible to avoid a hiatus, but it's hard to avoid your own thoughts.
Hiatus: 30 Poems
By Dwiputri Pertiwi
Paperback (with sleeve);
63 pages
Published in 2014 by
Nowherelandian
Designed by Max
Suriaganda
Printed in Indonesia