The poems of the Indonesian poet Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul featured inThe Goldfishtrace a journey of self-awareness and rebirth from the limited world of a fishbowl to a freedom that was difficult to achieve. The narratives are surreal and thought-provoking and challenge stereotypes concerning femininity in an often-fragmented discourse. Ayuning Maharsi Degoul’s explorations play with the ‘inhuman’ qualities of the fish but also evoke the realistic condition of a woman being constricted because of her limited environment. Her anger and disillusionment are expressed in continuous provocations that envisage sheer rebellion and suggest alternatives:

Stars are starving

Cats are getting mad

My mouth

wide open

O what I –

I need to be a newborn

immediately

delivered by a long river

O what I –

I

need

to give birth to the newest meevery day

Ovulating my apperception.(‘The Goldfish’)

‘O revolt!’ is announced in the poem ‘Rebellion Red’; she…