Before Dawn

by Sapardi Djoko Damono

Before Dawn is a collection of poems by Sapardi Djoko Damono dating from 1961 to 2001. One of Indonesia’s most popular poets. Sapardi first began writing poetry as a high school student in the mid-1950s. Before Dawn follows the poet through the different stages of his life, opening with the 1964 poem, One Night, when he is a young Muslim boy crying outside the church door as his classmates celebrate Christmas to the 2001, and ending with the title poem, Before Dawn , when the poet is a much older man, concerned with frailty and mortality. Through the language of his poetry, its meaning, sound, and rhythm, Sapardi has proven himself capable of depicting an acute imaginative awareness of experience.