Poetry as Resistance: A Sociological Analysis of Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche

Introduction

Literary works, especially poetry, have long reflected and resisted social realities, portraying injustice, identity, and power through symbolic and aesthetic means (1, 2). Across the world, poets like Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, and W. B. Yeats have used verse as a weapon of conscience turning poetry into an act of resistance that voices the marginalized and challenges domination (3, 4). In Indonesia, this tradition resonates strongly: literature has long served as a vessel of collective memory and moral defiance amid shifting political regimes and social struggles (5, 6).

Despite this enduring role, literary studies in Indonesia still focus predominantly on narrative prose, often neglecting the sociological depth of contemporary poetry (7, 8). Data from the Indonesian Literary Documentation Center reveal an increase in socially themed poetry publications, signaling growing unrest and a renewed critical discourse through poetic expression (9). This development calls for a more systematic exploration of poetry as a medium of cultural and political resistance (10).

In light of Indonesia’s complex sociohistorical experience from the G30S tragedy to the marginalization of farmers and laborers Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche stands out as a poetic essay that confronts institutional injustice and affirms human dignity (11, 12). Yet most existing studies rely on narrow critical perspectives such as Marxist or structural analysis, often overlooking integrative frameworks that connect the author’s social background, the text’s ideological content, and the reader’s reception (12). This gap limits our understanding of how contemporary Indonesian poetry performs resistance both artistically and socially.

To address this issue, the present study applies the sociological framework of Wellek and Warren, encompassing the sociology of the author, the text, and the reader. Through qualitative-descriptive methods involving close textual analysis, contextual interpretation, and reader interviews, this research investigates how Huizche’s poetry encodes resistance how his background informs his critique of injustice, how literary devices construct social meaning, and how readers cognitively and emotionally engage with those meanings. The study focuses on the poetic representation of resistance rather than its activist or political dimensions. By doing so, it aims to clarify the mechanisms through which Mata Luka Sengkon Karta embodies social critique and to reaffirm the position of contemporary Indonesian poetry as a vital space of cultural resistance and civic consciousness within both national and global literary traditions.

Methodology

Study Design and Rationale

This study employed a qualitative descriptive design with an interpretive sociological approach, grounded in literary sociology theories by Wellek and Warren. The rationale for using this design lies in its capacity to explore and uncover the sociological dimensions of literature, particularly how social values are constructed, reflected, and interpreted within poetic texts and their reception. The study focuses on a single case, the poetry collection Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche, selected for its explicit engagement with sociohistorical injustice and its resonance with postcolonial Indonesian realities. This design enables an in-depth, contextual examination of literary meaning and social critique rather than seeking statistical generalization.

Data Source and Sampling

The primary data source consisted of the poetry collection Mata Luka Sengkon Karta, comprising 136 pages published by PT Jurnal Sajak Indonesia. From this collection, nine poems were purposively selected for analysis. Selection followed three criteria: (1) thematic relevance, focusing on poems that articulate issues of injustice, inequality, or institutional critique; (2) symbolic and linguistic density, emphasizing rich metaphoric and allegorical constructions of social meaning; and (3) textual centrality, identifying poems that are often referenced in critical reviews or author readings. This sampling strategy ensured the inclusion of texts most representative of the collection’s sociological depth.

In addition, testimonies were gathered from two informed readers with prior experience studying Indonesian literature to explore the sociology of reader response. Given the limited number of participants, these interviews were conducted as exploratory rather than representative, aiming to capture interpretive insight and depth rather than generalizable trends.

Instruments and Materials

Data were collected using a combination of textual analysis and semi-structured interviews. A structured coding sheet facilitated the identification and categorization of sociological themes such as oppression, justice, and class struggle. The coding instrument was designed to trace recurring motifs, diction patterns, and rhetorical devices that signify social critique and resistance. The interviews were conducted using a guided protocol to capture readers’ interpretations, affective responses, and perceived sociopolitical meanings.

Data Collection methods

Data collection was conducted through a multi-stage procedure to ensure analytical rigor and comprehensiveness. The first phase involved textual immersion, where the researcher performed repeated, focused readings of Mata Luka Sengkon Karta to internalize its stylistic patterns, rhetorical structures, and symbolic representations. This step built familiarity with the linguistic and thematic layers of the text.

The second phase consisted of thematic annotation, during which key textual elements phrases, metaphors, and narrative motifs were identified and categorized according to three sociological domains: (a) authorial ideology as reflected in the poetic voice, (b) social critique embedded in the textual content, and (c) interpretative potential from the reader’s perspective.

To support the analysis of reader response, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the two participants. Each interview lasted approximately 45 min and was recorded with informed consent. The recordings were transcribed verbatim to maintain data accuracy and integrity. Although limited in number, the interviews provided rich qualitative insight into interpretive variations and emotional resonance, complementing the textual analysis.

Finally, supplementary documentation including historical records, social events referenced in the poems, and the author’s biographical notes was compiled to contextualize and triangulate the interpretations emerging from both text-based and reader-based analyses.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was conducted using a contextual and interpretive content analysis framework. The poems were analyzed through the lens of three literary sociological domains: [1] the sociology of the author, [2] the sociology of the text, and [3] the sociology of the reader. Each poem was coded inductively to identify recurrent sociological motif such as systemic violence, resistance, and class marginalization and the results were compared across the nine selected poems to identify patterns of social meaning. Findings from the textual analysis were triangulated with interview data to ensure interpretive coherence.

Trustworthiness was established through peer debriefing and an audit trail. Credibility was enhanced through prolonged engagement with the text, reflexive journaling during analysis, and member checking with interview participants. Theoretical triangulation with sociological and literary frameworks further reinforced methodological rigor and interpretive validity.

Results

The poetry collection Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche was analyzed using Wellek and Warren’s literary sociology framework, which examines three interconnected domains: the sociology of the author, the sociology of the text, and the sociology of the reader. This section presents the findings with a primary focus on the authorial background.

Sociology of the Author

The author, Peri Sandi, was born in Sukabumi on February 15, 1987, and currently resides in Serang, Banten. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (2012) and a Master’s degree (2015) in Arts from the Indonesian Institute of Cultural Arts, Bandung. At present, he serves as a lecturer in Theatre Studies at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Surakarta, holding the academic rank of Assistant Expert.

Peri Sandi has received notable recognition for his literary contributions. His poem Mata Luka Sengkon Karta won a national poetry competition organized by Jurnal Sajak Inspirasi in 2012. He has also participated in several prominent literary events, including the West Java Literary Meeting (2013), the Mitra Praja Utama Literary Forum (2013), and the Southeast Asian Mastera Essay Writing Workshop (2014).

Beyond this biographical record, Peri Sandi’s theatrical background significantly influences his poetic style and rhetorical construction. His experience in theatre informs the poem’s performative rhythm, dramatic dialogue, and visual imagery, turning the poem into a staged reenactment of injustice rather than a static narration. This performative tendency is evident in his use of repetition, shifts in voice, and sensory imagery that evoke courtroom and stage settings. In this respect, the poem reflects what Ricoeur (2004) calls “narrative re-enactment,” through which art re-activates social memory and moral reflection.

Peri Sandi’s background as an arts academic and theater practitioner significantly shapes the way he frames historical events in his poetry. His formal education in cultural arts enriches his expressive and reflective capabilities, evident in his choice of diction, narrative structure, and the use of social symbolism. As a writer active in both regional and international literary forums, he brings a critical perspective to issues of inequality, repression, and state power. Theatrical strategies such as alternating voices, symbolic props, and rhythmized repetition serve as aesthetic resistance transforming the suffering of Sengkon and Karta into a performative protest. As a result, works like Mata Luka Sengkon Karta function not merely as aesthetic expressions, but as social documents and mediums of resistance that record the historical wounds of the nation. The dual dimension of resistance aesthetic through form and political through ideological critique emerges clearly in Huizche’s poetic method.

These artistic choices also correspond to verifiable historical contexts. Secondary sources historical reports on the Sengkon and Karta case in 1974, accounts of “petrus” (mysterious shootings) during the 1980s, and documentation of the 1965 anti-communist violence confirm that the poem draws on real sociopolitical trauma. Thus, Huizche’s poetic imagination is historically grounded and not purely fictional.

Sociology of the Reader

The sociology of the reader explores how Mata Luka Sengkon Karta is interpreted and internalized by its audience, particularly in relation to its social impact and ideological resonance. Two readers, both university-educated in literature, shared their reflections on the work’s thematic depth and societal relevance.

Ali Amri Deppatoro, a recent graduate from Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar, noted that the poem holds strong appeal among university students due to its immersive narrative and careful diction. He emphasized that the author, Peri Sandi Huizche, employs symbolic language rooted in historical realities, particularly those linked to the repression and violence of the New Order regime. According to Ali, the poem contributes to collective memory and invites critical reflection on past injustices, offering a rare and valuable perspective in Indonesia’s poetic landscape, which remains largely dominated by romanticism. He further argued that the poem exposes how state apparatuses historically silenced dissent and that such works expand literary awareness among younger readers.

Muh Yusril Rusfat, another literature graduate, interpreted the poem as a historical testimony that revisits the socio-political trauma of the 1965 G30S incident through the lens of marginalized figures like Sengkon and Karta. He praised the poet’s dedication to the voice of the lower class and described the poem as an intellectual call to action, particularly for students, to employ their education as a means of social transformation. For Yusril, the poem fosters religious values, solidarity, and empathy, while also sharpening critical awareness of systemic inequality and urging the application of locally grounded knowledge to solve national issues. In his words, “its verses teach compassion as protest how remembering the oppressed is itself a moral act.”

Readers identified state repression and violence as central themes in the poem, and emphasized its role in enhancing critical awareness and social empathy. While only two readers were interviewed, this component is framed as an illustrative rather than representative case. Following Fish’s (1980) concept of interpretive communities, these readings demonstrate how meaning is co-constructed by socially aware readers who share moral frameworks. The goal is to capture depth of interpretation rather than general patterns, underscoring the exploratory nature of the reader analysis.

Although only two readers were interviewed, this section is exploratory in nature and positioned as a small case study. The goal is not to make broad generalizations, but rather to capture in-depth individual responses to Mata Luka Sengkon Karta. This approach enables a more contextual and qualitative understanding of how the literary work is received by readers with relevant literary backgrounds.

Sociology of the Literary Work

The sociological dimension of the literary text in Mata Luka Sengkon Karta reveals how historical violence, state repression, and social injustice are narrated through poetic structure and symbolic expression. The poems reconstruct real events surrounding the wrongful accusation and persecution of Sengkon and Karta, contextualized within Indonesia’s socio-political turmoil of the 1960s–1980s. By reappropriating state emblems such as Garuda and Pancasila, and referencing state development programs like REPELITA, the poet reconfigures national symbols into tools of ideological critique. This symbolic strategy transforms the poem into a counter-memory, a poetic resistance to historical erasure, challenging state narratives and amplifying voices long silenced by authoritarianism.

The line “REPELITA as a five-year plan for slaughter” is a striking example of linguistic inversion that exposes the hypocrisy of the New Order’s developmental rhetoric. Such textual evidence supports Sartre’s idea of littérature engagée, where aesthetic form becomes a moral act.

The poems explore themes of betrayal, suffering, and systemic oppression. Lines such as “pupuh and kecapi soften the pain/entwined in urgent voices” symbolize how cultural expression and traditional wisdom serve as tools of resilience. The work recounts the unjust imprisonment of Sengkon and Karta for a murder they did not commit, highlighting abuses of power, wrongful convictions, and the violent legacy of New Order authoritarianism. By integrating verifiable historical references and symbolic transformation, the poem bridges art and documented social history, offering both aesthetic and political forms of resistance.

Discussion

The poem Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche integrates three core dimensions of literary sociology: the sociology of the author, the reader, and the literary work itself (13, 14). Through these perspectives, the poem becomes a medium for articulating social values, collective memory, and criticism of structural injustice in Indonesian society.

This poetic essay reflects the tension between normative social values and the lived realities of Indonesian citizens, especially those belonging to marginalized and impoverished communities. It exposes the erosion of humanitarian principles in the face of widening socio-economic gaps. As the population of Indonesia reaches over 278 million, the disparity between the rich and the poor becomes increasingly pronounced. The poet amplifies the voices of the oppressed, revealing how poverty is not merely an outcome of individual failure, but a consequence of systemic neglect and governmental indifference (15).

Huizche’s work invites readers to revisit a painful period in Indonesian history, evoking emotional and moral reflection (16). The poem urges society to recognize the importance of social values, not as abstract ideals, but as guiding principles that ensure justice, dignity, and equity in a democratic nation (17). In doing so, the poet challenges the silence of authority and calls for a renewed commitment to the foundational values enshrined in the fifth principle of Pancasila: social justice for all Indonesians.

The discussion also clarifies the distinction between two intertwined forms of resistance. Aesthetic resistance arises through artistic form imagery, rhythm, metaphor, and theatrical voice while political resistance manifests in ideological confrontation, naming violence and reclaiming suppressed narratives. Mata Luka Sengkon Karta unites both dimensions: it protests through its music as much as through its meaning (12).

Huizche’s theatrical background contributes to this dual mode by transforming textual narration into performative critique, making reading itself an ethical act of witnessing (18). This performative quality reflects his theatrical sensibility, where voice, gesture, and rhythm function as rhetorical tools to dramatize resistance (19). The reader, as the interviews reveal, becomes part of the performative remembrance, echoing Ricoeur’s theory that storytelling restores moral agency to collective trauma. Although limited to two participants, these insights are positioned as an illustrative case of interpretive engagement rather than representative findings. As one respondent noted, “reading the poem feels like entering a courtroom of memory,” reflecting how readers transform the act of reading into moral witnessing.

The analysis of the author’s background, the readers’ interpretations, and the textual dimensions of the poem, as detailed in the results section, collectively illustrate how literary production is deeply embedded within sociopolitical contexts. By drawing upon secondary historical materials the Sengkon-Karta court records, reports on the “petrus” killings, and scholarly analyses of post-1965 violence the poem’s critique of injustice is verified and contextualized. These sources demonstrate that the issues opposed by the poem are not metaphorical alone but correspond to factual social events.

These three sociological layers interact to construct ‘Mata Luka Sengkon Karta’ not merely as a work of aesthetic value, but as a text of resistance, historical documentation, and public engagement. This synthesis reinforces the poem’s function as both cultural documentation and moral resistance, positioning contemporary Indonesian poetry as a living medium of collective memory and civic consciousness.

Conclusion

Based on the analysis of Mata Luka Sengkon Karta by Peri Sandi Huizche, this study concludes that the poem embodies a strong intersection between art and social reality, revealing historical injustice and the suffering of marginalized groups in Indonesia. At the authorial level, Huizche’s theatrical sensibility shapes a performative and visual poetics; at the textual level, his use of metaphor and inversion reconstructs real sociopolitical violence; and at the reader level, interpretation becomes an act of moral witnessing.

Theoretically, this study advances Indonesian literary sociology by adapting Wellek and Warren’s triadic model to contemporary poetry, showing how aesthetic and political resistance operate together through form, ideology, and audience response. Thus, Mata Luka Sengkon Karta reaffirms literature’s role as both cultural memory and social critique.

While limited to one text and two readers, the findings provide a basis for broader comparative and interdisciplinary research on how Indonesian literature encodes resistance and collective memory.