Inside these pages, you'll find:
• a metamorphic love story near the Korean DMZ from award-winner E.C. Myers;
• a brand new supernatural crime tale from bestselling author John Burdett;
• a cautionary tale about Singaporean elitism from Tiffany Tsao;
• an examination of the illusory facets of love from Victor Fernando R. Ocampo;
• a haunting and beautiful evocation of a fantastical Vietnamese floating market from Eliza Chan;
• and speculative poetry from Jerrold Yam, Tse Hao Guang, Ang Si Min, Shelly Bryant and Daryl Yam.
Write one poem a day for thirty days in the cruel month of April: that was the challenge thrown open to the wilderness of the interwebz. This anthology brings together the best of the hundreds of poems that were submitted, from verses written in response to fiendish "include-all-these-six-words-in-your-poem" challenges, to impromptu poems written on whim. In the spirit of the democratic process of poetry, we feature first-time poets beside established ones, and blackout poems besides long-forgotten forms such as the liwuli.
As our island nation approaches its 50th anniversary wielding extraordinary wealth and prosperity, it is timely to review the narrative that has shepherded us through the past half-century. Indeed, it seems only poetic justice to examine this polarising mythos through the ballyhooed medium of poetry. To praise and appraise this most poetic of figures, 56 of Singapore's finest poets offer up 65 poems that promise to excite, exhilarate, and electrify, to a man.
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Join this pair of unexpected superheroes as they go on adventures with their trusty sidekick Lemon the Cat, and show everyone how to be happy and true to themselves.
At its core, the collection is built around a very wise line from a Beatles song: I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand with no further expectations. I want to hold your hand instead of telling you I understand when I don’t. I want to hold your hand although we don’t always get along. I want to hold your hand despite the calluses, scratches, and scars that get in the way. I want to hold your hand knowing I’ll have to let it go one day.
Almost a poetic Künstlerroman, the 45 poems are ordered to reflect a journey of affections and musical understanding. They shuffle like crossfaded tracks through changing cities, characters and combinations of sound. These lines blur between representation and truth. The reader is left to trace the shape of a lyric body in the liminal space between silence and music.
“Dark and damaged, and yet so hopeful all at the same time.”
~ Cyril Wong
“This has to be one of my favourite poetry collections in recent times: The Law of Second Marriages by Christine Chia. I noted: ‘The poems are wound and compact, speak of various cruelties not with woefulness but almost crystalline dispassion. Even if an episode was histrionic, its narration was shrewd and sober.’ This is a poet who can write about pain like a draughtsman using pin on skin.”
~ Alfian Sa’at
“Although I knew it wasn’t ‘the unequivocal truth’, I was moved by Christine Chia’s ‘family psychodrama’ which was engaging, entertaining and at times a little shocking.”
~ Suchen Christine Lim
“Spare, honest, coherent yet uncalculated, emotionally unrelenting without the emo, this is Singapore’s best recent example of the poetry of memoir.”
TALAQ (First self-published in 1999)
SMEGMA (First published by Elangovan in 2006)
STOMA (Originally written to be performed in 2013)
Talaq came under the media spotlight in 2000, when the Public Entertainment Licensing Unit (PELU) in Singapore denied it a performance license for its English and Malay performances on grounds that they would offend religious sensibilities. The play had originally been staged in Tamil, once in 1988 and twice in 1999. Concerns were raised over the portrayal of the Islamic faith and Indian Muslim community group South Indian Jamiathul Ulama (SIJU) protested the staging of Talaq. Subsequently, Elangovan and the Talaq lead actress, Nargis Banu, reported death threats being made against them, and the Agni Kootthu president S. Thenmoli was arrested and warned for criminal trespass before having a private rehearsal to document the play within the officially-booked-and paid-for Drama Centre.
SMEGMA
(First published by Elangovan in 2006)
Smegma was originally to have been staged by Agni Kootthu (Theatre of Fire) on Saturday 5 August and Sunday 6 August 2006 at the Guinness Theatre, The Substation, with support from the Arts Fund. The performance was given an Arts Entertainment Licence with RA18 (Restricted Artistic 18 years and above only) rating and advisory: “The play contains strong language and adult themes that may be objectionable to some members of the public” by the Media Content Division (Publications and Arts) of the Media Development Authority (MDA) on Tuesday 1 August 2006. The license was cancelled without reason on Friday 4 August 2006, the eve of the production by (the same) MDA. As a result, Smegma could not be staged.
STOMA
(Originally written to be performed in 2013)
Stoma, co-presented by Agni Kootthu (Theatre of Fire) and The Substation, was to have been staged from 17 to 19 January 2013 at The Substation but on 8 January 2013, the Media Development Authority (MDA) banned its performance. Initially, Agni Kootthu had been invited by MDA for a meeting regarding the application for Arts Entertainment Licence for Stoma on Wednesday 9 January 2013 at 3p.m., but on Tuesday 8 January, Agni Kootthu was informed at 9.23a.m. to go for the meeting at 8p.m. on the same day. Surprisingly there was neither a meeting nor discussion regarding Stoma at MDA. Two very polite MDA female officers (not the original signatory) handed over the MDA letter of ban for Stoma, dated 8 January 2013, to Agni Kootthu, giving no opportunity to discuss or appeal.
“Here is a book few of us think a Singaporean could write! For proof, pick it up and read almost any section/para.... and believe me, you will be astounded! Kon is a consummate artist here, weaving strands of knowledge, wisdom, humor so porously that as readers we are left
baffled but wiser, perhaps even sadder. I don’t know how best to describe this book – perhaps the word *fable* might well do the trick! Like the wizards of old, he weaves magic into words seamlessly making us marvel and wonder. This is a book all educated men and women will find thoroughly rewarding and refreshing. A damn good read!”
~ Kirpal Singh, author of Thinking Hats & Colored Turbans
“Smart, irreverent, often unnerving, these sonnets smirk, smile, argue, and bless. Jee Leong Koh has taken a month of days and rendered a very contemporary version of the artist as a young man. Cash in your paycheck and buy this book.”
Fortune tellers smile in magazine columns. A mystery hero steals the fantasies of people he likes the look of.
“Mani Rao is a poet’s poet, and echolocation is a collection for those of us tired of the conventional logic in reading much of contemporary poetry written today.”
~ Cyril Wong
“For several years, Mani Rao has been cutting her own fiercely singular path through the thickets of our language; with each new book her compositional values become both more light and more precise, and her gestures – for this is a poetry of intense ellipsis – more sure, more instantaneous, more stunning.”
~ Vivek Narayanan
“The poems deserve closer, less clichéd attention. They are reflections of sex, blood, and god, and while they look like prose on the page, in the mouth they feel like poetry.”
~ Jeet Thayil
"Reading Tania De Rozario's poems is to swallow fire or drink liquid nitrogen. This is no contradiction—the poet's red-hot honesty and wit, framed in a voice that is chillingly sober and vulnerable, ensure that her words are not for the bland or emotionally-vacant. Funny, brave, ever-hopeful and always heart-breaking, her poetry will move you—and knock you off your feet."
— Cyril Wong, Author of Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light.
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