Between the sacred and the profane: Reframing poetry in travel writing studies

This article examines the transformation of profane spatial experience into the consciousness of sacred space in Suminto A. Sayuti’s poetry anthology Ketika Diri adalah Kepulangan dan Keberangkatan. The study employs a dialectical framework that integrates Jonathan Culler’s concept of the performativity of meaning, Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, and Mircea Eliade’s notion of the sacred. Through this integrative approach, the research demonstrates that Sayuti’s poems do not merely represent spatial journeys but enact poetic performances that constitute space as both existential and symbolic experience. The analysis of urban imagery, such as cities, roads, and bridges, reveals that these spaces become loci of sacred manifestation through poetic language, negotiating the threshold between the profane and the transcendent. The findings affirm that Sayuti’s poetry presents a form of modern pilgrimage, in which the sacred experience persists through language amidst the modern condition that tends to negate the spirituality of space. This study demonstrates that travel poetry in Sayuti’s poetry does not merely represent geographical mobility but constructs space as an ontological and spiritual experience through poetic language. These findings propose an integrative analytical framework that bridges the production of space and the sacralization of experience, while opening new directions in the study of urban poetics as a realm of existential and eschatological meaning-seeking