AUDIO: ‘Rigour’: A Poem Digs Beneath ‘Third World’ Tropes in the Media

Khairani Barokka’s poignant poem highlights how Western reports of casualties in the developing world, even when the dead in question are children, are often recorded with indifference toward the human lives lost. Listen to Barokka read her poem “Rigour,” and follow along below.

Khairani Barokka was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1985. She is a writer, poet, artist and disability and arts advocate. She was a Tisch Fellow at New York University, a writer-in-residence at the Emerging Writers Festival in Australia and Indonesia’s first writer-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center. She wrote, produced and performed in “Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee,” which premiered at Edinburgh Fringe 2014, and was most recently artist-in-residence at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia. She has performed, taught or presented work in nine countries, and is published in anthologies and literary journals in print and online. She has just completed two poetry manuscripts, “Pilot Light” and “Oil and enamel on linen: poems.” Learn more about her work at www.khairanibarokka.com.