The 1953 publication of Sitor Situmorang’s Green Paper Letters pegged him as a rising poet. Six decades later, the writer was still active and for this book, more than a hundred poems were selected from the several thousand poems he wrote. The main characteristic of Sitor’s poetry is the simplicity of its wording and clarity of its syntax. Sitor’s poetry is poetry of words, evocations of concepts, calling up a series of pictures and images. In his poems, we found a poignant blend of personal experience and philosophical reflection.
