My major influences are the French poets (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Apollinaire, and the Surrealists), Federico Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Aimee Cesaire, the American Beat poets, the Chinese Li Po, Indonesian Chairil Anwar, and all the shamans of this planet!

I write in Indonesian and English, and my poems, short stories, essays and translations have been published in Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia and Italy, as well as on the Internet. Anthologies in English in which I have my poems published are Sport 4, Ginger Stardust, New Zealand Haiku Anthology, Mutes & Earthquakes, and Tongue in Your Ear (vol. 3 & 4). I had won numerous poetry awards in Indonesia and New Zealand, such as Victoria University of Wellington Original Composition Poetry Prize (1992), University of Auckland Blues Award for Poetry (1997), NZ Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, Haiku section (1992) and "Art and Peace" National Poetry Competition (Bali, 1999). In February 1994 I was invited to "New Wellington Poets" Poetry Reading organised by NZ Poetry Society. In February 2000, a few weeks before I returned to Indonesia, a 10-minute doco-film was made on me by Auckland filmmaker Peter Larsen entitled "Saut Situmorang". In June 2003, a collection of my love poems entitled "saut kecil bicara dengan tuhan" (little saut talking to god) was published as part of the Indonesian Contemporary Poetry series by Bentang Budaya in Jogjakarta, while a collection of my political poems "catatan subversif" (subversive notes) is forthcoming from Melibas, Jakarta.

At present I'm planning to translate all those great poets' works (in English) that have changed my life into Indonesian. It's a way of saying "thank you, mate!" to their sacred memory. Coz poetry is truly a joy, forever!