While attending senior high school in Surakarta around 1930, Amir became involved with the nationalist movement and fell in love with a Javanese schoolmate, Ilik Sundari.

Drawing influences from his own Malay culture and Islam, as well as from Christianity and Eastern literature, Amir wrote 50 poems, 18 pieces of lyrical prose, and numerous other works, including several translations.

[2] Amir was schooled in Islamic principles such as Qu'ran reading, fiqh, and tawhid, and studied at the Azizi Mosque in Tanjung Pura from a young age.

[21] Later he met several future writers, including Armijn Pane and Achdiat Karta Mihardja;[22] they soon found him to be a friendly and diligent student with complete notes and a spotless bedroom (sheets folded so well, Mihardja later recalled, that a "lost fly could have easily slid over them"[c]), but also a romantic, prone to thinking wistfully beneath the lamplight and isolating himself from his classmates.

[24] In 1930 Amir became head of the Surakartan branch of the Indonesia Muda (Young Indonesians), delivering a speech at the 1930 Youth Congress and serving as an editor of the organisation's magazine Garuda Merapi.

[34] In mid-1933 Amir was recalled to Langkat, where the Sultan informed him of two conditions which he had to fulfil to continue his studies: be a diligent student and abandon the independence movement.

[40] He continued to publish in Poedjangga Baroe, including a series of five articles on Eastern literatures from June to December 1934 and a translation of the Bhagavad Gita from 1933 to 1935.

[41] The Dutch, concerned about Amir's nationalistic tendencies, convinced the Sultan to send him back to Langkat, an order which the fledgling poet was unable to refuse.

Upon arriving in Langkat, he was informed that he was to be married to the Sultan's eldest daughter, Tengku Puteri Kamiliah, a woman he had barely met.

[47] As a prince of Langkat, Amir became a court official, handling administrative and legal matters, and at times judging criminal cases.

[51] A last book, Sastera Melayu Lama dan Raja-Rajanya (Old Malay Literature and its Kings), was published in Medan in 1942; this was based on a radio speech Amir had delivered.

Amir and his cousin Tengku Harun were in charge; the nobility, trusted by the general populace, was selected to ensure easier recruitment of commoners.

[53] Amir accepted the position readily,[54] subsequently handling numerous tasks set by the central government, including inaugurating the first local division of the People's Safety Army (Tentara Keamanan Rakjat; the predecessor to the Indonesian Army)[53] opening meetings of various local branches of national political parties,[55] and promoting education – particularly Latin-alphabet literacy.

[56] In early 1946, rumours spread in Langkat that Amir had been seen dining with representatives of the returning Dutch government,[57] and there was growing unrest within the general populace.

[58] On 7 March 1946, during a social revolution led by factions of the Communist Party of Indonesia, a group staunchly against feudalism and the nobility, Amir's power was stripped from him and he was arrested;[59] Kamiliah and Tahura escaped.

[61] Amir's last piece of writing, a fragment from his 1941 poem "Buah Rindu", was later found in his cell:[62] Wahai maut, datanglah engkau Lepaskan aku dari nestapa Padamu lagi tempatku berpaut Disaat ini gelap gulita Come then, oh Death Release me from mine suffering To you, again, must I cling In these most dark times On the morning of 20 March 1946, Amir was killed with 26 other people and buried in a mass grave which the detainees had dug;[e][63] several of his siblings were also killed in the revolution.

[72] The literary critic Muhammad Balfas writes that, unlike his contemporaries, Amir drew little influence from sonnets and the neo-romantic Dutch poets, the Tachtigers;[73] Johns comes to the same conclusion.

[74] The Australian literary scholar Keith Foulcher, however, noting that the poet quoted Willem Kloos's "Lenteavond" in his article on pantuns, suggests that Amir was very likely influenced by the Tachtigers.

[77] Aprinus Salam of Gadjah Mada University, of the same position, points to the instances where Hamzah treats God as a lover as indicative of Sufi influence.

[79] Ultimately, the poet Chairil Anwar wrote that Amir's Nyanyi Sunyi could be termed "obscure poetry" as readers cannot understand the works without prior knowledge of Malay history and Islam.

[83] Husny writes that at least nine of the works in Buah Rindu[h] were inspired by his longing for Aja Bun, portraying a sense of disappointment after their engagement was called off.

[84] Regarding the book's three-part dedication, "to the mournful Greater Indonesia / to the ashes of the Mother-Queen / and to the feet of the Sendari-Goddess",[i][85] Mihardja writes that Sundari was immediately recognisable to any of Amir's classmates; he considers her the poet's inspiration as "Laura to Petrarch, Mathilde to Jacques Perk".

[86] The critic Zuber Usman finds Sundari's influence on Nyanyi Sunyi as well, suggesting his parting from her led Amir closer to God,[87] an opinion Dini echoes.

[88] The translator Burton Raffel connects a couplet at the end of the book, reading "Sunting sanggul melayah rendah / sekaki sajak seni sedih"[89] ("A flower floating in a loose knot of hair / Gave birth to my sorrowful poems") as a call out to a forbidden love.

[43] Altogether Amir wrote fifty poems, eighteen pieces of lyrical prose, twelve articles, four short stories, three poetry collections, and one original book.

Unlike the works of his contemporaries Alisjahbana or Sanusi Pane, his poems did not include symbols of a Europeanised modernity such as electricity, trains, telephones, and engines, allowing "the natural Malay world to show wholly".

Nyanyi Sunyi, Amir's first poetry collection, was published in the November 1937 issue of Poedjangga Baroe,[100] then as a stand-alone book by Poestaka Rakjat in 1938.

[111] Amir's second poetry collection, Buah Rindu, was published in the June 1941 issue of Poedjangga Baroe,[112] then as a stand-alone book by Poestaka Rakjat later that year.

[125] Works in this anthology repeated terms of sadness such as menangis (cry), duka (grief), rindu (longing), and air mata (tears), as well as words such as cinta (love), asmara (passion), and merantau (wander).

[127] Anwar described his predecessor's use of language in the collection as clean and pure, with "compactly violent, sharp, and yet short" sentences which departed from the "destructive force" of flowery traditional Malay poetry.