Playwriting, Short Story, and Poetry Training by DBI Lecturers and Alumni
Department of Indonesian Language (DBI) State University of Malang (UM) organized training in writing short stories, poetry, and play scripts for DBI students of all generations on Monday (15/8/2022). The event was held offline limited in the AVA Hall of the Faculty of Letters UM. It was attended by three reliable presenters in their fields, namely Dr. Karkono, M.A., as a DBI lecturer; Royyan Julian, M.A., as a UM alumni and currently a lecturer and writer, and Yohan Fikri M., S.Pd., as a UM alumni and successful poet. This training was a form of the plan from UM lecturers and alums who want to make the younger siblings or current DBI students the successors of their predecessors. The event was exciting and lively, with sharing experiences between students and the two alums. The first speaker was Royyan Julian, M.A., about short story writing.
“There are people whose life and death depend on stories. If you want to be a real writer, you can’t wait for ideas to come; you must pick them up. Some writers and people write. Writers focus on the world and writing career. Some write, like teachers who write and business people who write because they don’t want a career in writing. A writer must write and read regularly. Writers must have “purposeful experiences” such as reading to find ideas and taking walks to find inspiration,” explained Royyan Julian, M.A.
The second speaker, Yohan Fikri M., S.Pd., talked about poetry writing. “Poetry that has been misunderstood is about expressions of feelings. Yes, that is true. But is it just that? I think not. If we go back in history, poetry was essentially born from the oral tradition. From ancient times, the spoken word was used to express ideas. People began looking for other mediums to express ideas besides oral, and poetry became the right choice because it combines sound, tone, and rhythm, making it easy to remember. So poetry can be the right medium to convey ideas,” he explained.
Furthermore, Dr. Karkono, M.A., as a DBI lecturer, motivated the alums and students to keep working and diligently participate in competitions. “In this material, we can discuss what writing poetry is like and share experiences when winning competitions and writing books. If I become a judge, the main concerns are good writing, punctuation, the first paragraph, and an interesting title. Thousands of manuscripts will not be read in their entirety by the judges, so the title/first paragraph is critical to attract interest. This is a handy tip, especially if you already know who the judges are and what characteristics the judges like,” explained Dr. Karkono, M.A.
The event continued with practicing together writing poetry on the theme “Eternity” for 30 minutes for each participant. Next, the presenters reviewed the participants’ poems and selected the best two to be criticized, corrected, and appreciated.
Photo 1 [presenters speak in front of an audience]
Photo 2 [Photos during the activity]