singapore poetry & prose · introduction: singapore poetry and prose 1. in publicising her...
TRANSCRIPT
NUMBERS & NICHESIS
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800LIT
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SingaporePoetry & Prose
This issue features
writings by people born
or working in Singapore,
otherwise known as
“Sing Lit”, short for
“Singapore Literature”.
Many people’s first
encounter with local
writing is as prescribed
reads in school. That’s
one way to take the
fun out of anything.
introduc tion:
singap ore p oe try and prose
1
In publicising her anthology of East and
Southeast Asian short stories, the BooksActually's
Gold Standard 2016, editor Julie Koh mentioned
the concept of a ‘bamboo ceiling’ that downplays
the perceived value of Asian writing, when read in
the context of Western cultural dominance. It’s a
brand perception that Sing Lit is implicated in.
Text is not just words recorded on a reading surface.
It also includes the spoken word and illustrations.
Modern art (in the Western world) was kicked off
by Impressionists rejected from the Paris Salon,
acceptance being hitherto a requirement for
artworks to be taken seriously. With time, the idea of
‘literature’ may extend to internet blogs, cookbooks,
lyric-based music, and other non-standard forms —
and we do not need an establishment to achieve that.
For Singapore to be considered a nation of
readers, let us reimagine what literature is. After
all, social media posts are considered publishing.
A while ago, the National Arts Council’s National
Literary Reading and Writing Survey 2015
highlighted that the larger majority of Singaporeans
and Permanent Residents polled predict for
digital content to replace traditional books in the
next two decades. Interestingly, the same survey
indicated that only 1 in 4 survey respondents had
ever read a literary book by a Singaporean writer,
even though almost half of them have read at
least one literary book in the 12 months prior.
This issue captures the delightful and wide-
ranging nature of local writing through personal
notebooks, drafts, and thoughts of writers. Read on!
© Mohd Zharfan
Participants at the magnetic poetry wall during an event at Central Public Library. People were free to assemble their own poems by putting various words together.
32
WHAT YOU WRITE IS NOBODY'S BUSINESS. ISN'T THAT POETRY?- wong may
54
A W
RIT
ER
'S N
OT
EB
OO
K
Early draft of "Me Migrant". This poem, originally written in Bengali, was eventually featured in Mukul’s poetry collection of the same name – Me Migrant (2016), published by Ethos Books.
Tse Hao Guang's thoughts on "The Glass Essay” by Anne
Carson, from her book Glass
Irony and God.
TSE HAO GUANG MD MUKUL HOSSINE
76
GENEVIEVE WONGWriter and editor Genevieve Wong’s journal where she jots her observations, lists and everything that catches her attention. On this page, she imagines the Singapore Stone exploring the island.
988
Drafts of a poem by writer Felix Cheong. Originally titled “Locusta”, it eventually became “Instructions from a Serial Killer”, irst published in Broken by the Rain (2003) by Firstfruits Publications and republished in Sudden in Youth: New and
Selected Poems (2009) by Ethos Books.
FELIX CHEONG
1110 11
Anatomy of a Poem
AN EXAMPLE OF A VILANELLE
THE STRUCTURE OF A PANTOUM
19 lines
6 stanzas
5 tercets
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
a set or
group of
three lines
of verse
rhyming
together or
connected
by rhyme
with an
adjacent
triplet.
The modern
pantoum is
composed in
quatrains
(four-line
stanzas).
It adheres
to a pattern
of repeating
lines (or
repetons).
There
is no
limit to
how many
stanzas a
pantoum
can have.
The last stanza repeats the two lines from
the poem that have not yet been repeated
(lines 1 and 3 of the first stanza). However,
the order is typically reversed from the
established pattern, so that line 3 becomes
line 2 of the last stanza, line 1 becomes
line 4 of the last stanza (or the last line
of the poem, causing it to come full circle).a stanza of four lines,
especially one having
alternate rhymes.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1 quatrain
Line 1
Line 2
Line 5
Line 7
Line 2
Line 5 (new)
Line 7 (new)
Line 3
Line 3
Line 4
Line 6
Line 8
Line 4
Line 6 (new)
Line 8 (new)
Line 1
quatrains
It is said that the
pantoum form of poetry
started in Malaysia during
the fifteenth-century.
Originally recited or
sung as a folk poem, it
was a brief and concise
form that consisted of two
rhyming couplets.
The pantoum went on to
catch the attention of
French, British, and also
American poets who used
the form to create their
works. These poets include
Charles Baudelaire,
Victor Hugo, and John
Ashberry.
Today, the pantoum is a
poem of any length, with
four-line stanzas where
the second and fourth
lines of each stanza serve
as the first and third
lines of the next. The
last line is often the
same as the first.
Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas
1312
Tse Hao Guang is the author
of two books, hyperlinkage
(2013) and Deeds of Light
(2015), both published by Math
Paper Press. In this interview,
he shares his literary habits,
some of his favourite literature
of Singapore and also his
approach to creative writing.
Before becoming writers, they all started off as
readers. Can you share more about the books you
read and your literary habits?
I lean towards experimental poetry and prose, but I also
love science fiction (sci-fi), fantasy, and comics. I tend to
enjoy work that plays with time — non-linear narratives,
time travel, stream of consciousness — as well as
metafictional work that delves into the nature of stories
and storytelling. Authors and books in those vein — the
Nocilla trilogy by Augustin Fernandez Mallo, A Void by
Georges Perec, the comic book series Fables, the crazy
sp otlight
1514
near-future books by Michel Houellebecq (Atomised,
Submission), most of Virginia Woolf but especially The
Waves and Between the Acts, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea,
Empire of Memory by Eric Galimanda, etc. Other books
and writers that may not fit the above criteria: Primo Levi's
accounts of surviving the Nazi camps in If This Is a Man
and The Truce (he also wrote sci-fi short stories!), Elena
Ferrante's Neapolitan series, Between Stations by Boey Kim
Cheng, House of Glass by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Silence
by Shusaku Endo. For poetry, Anne Carson, Derek Walcott,
Memorial by Alice Oswald, Marianne Moore, Yearling by
Lo Kwa Mei-En, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by Hugh
MacDiarmid, Charles Olson, Wong May, and Arthur Yap.
Who are some of your favourite writers in Singapore
and why?
I'm not sure “in Singapore” works for my purposes, so I'll try
“of Singapore” instead. I'll talk about older writers and books
— I think I need more distance from recent work. Tan Hwee
Hwee's Mammon Inc. was perhaps the first novel written by
a Singaporean I ever read, and it still remains my favourite.
It's both sci-fi and social (megacorporation hiring cultural
translators to facilitate neoliberalism — will the protagonist sell
her soul?), but also, more importantly, really funny, well-written,
and not at all caught up with Singapore as a Nation or Idea.
Boey Kim Cheng's Between Stations is a lyrical and deeply
moving series of essays on not being at home. Wong May,
although she has left Singapore, has four books of poetry that
do wondrous things with language and silence. Arthur Yap's
poetry and prose I think most successfully captures a kind of
localness in his use of malapropisms and poetic logic. Kuo Pao
Kun (but he is so much more than a writer!) has several plays
which, although I haven't seen them staged, are in reading the
strongest social texts I've ever encountered here.
Describe your approach to creative writing.
“Playfulness”. I won't say more to pin me down, except that
playfulness can be a serious thing!
1716
Tse Hao Guang will be at Central Public
Library on 22 June 2017 (7.30pm) to share his
journey of stumbling into poetry, completing
a manuscript, to publication. He will also read
and speak more about the poems in Deeds of
Light, and give the audience a glimpse of the
International Writers Program, where he was
privileged to interact with 36 writers from
30 different countries all over the world.
Find out more at www.nlb.gov.sg/golibrary.
Can you recommend some books on writing craft?
I don't actually read craft books; I think the best learning
occurs through reading good things and talking to the
right people. I have enjoyed books about the increasing
professionalisation of creative writing in America and
elsewhere such as MFA vs NYC edited by Chad Harbach,
and Workshops of Empire by Eric Bennett.
How do you know when a poem is complete?
I don't — I generally give up on them.
As a young writer, what are your hopes for the future
for Singapore literature?
I hope to see more writing with vision — and I don't think
I'll be let down.
poetry with
tse hao guang
© Jon Gresham 1918
“Read this
(at the library,
because it is out of
print) to understand
that sometimes it is the
wanderer and traveller
who has the most
urgent sense of what
home means.”
Tse Hao GuangBetween Stations Boey Kim ChengGiramondo Publishing, New South Wales, Australia, 2009 —English S821 BOE,
Singapore Collection
hao guang ’s book
recommendation
2120
Edited by Edwin Thumboo and Yeow Kai ChaiNational Arts Council,Singapore, 2009—English 808.81 REF, Singapore Collection
It is a joke among local poets that each of them must
have a poem about the Merlion in their portfolio. This
1964 creation by Alec Frederick Fraser-Brunner for the
Singapore Tourism Board is a well-known marketing icon,
ready-made for artistic dissection. Poetry pioneer Edwin
Thumboo got the water running with his 1979 ‘Ulysses by
the Merlion’. Here, he and fellow editors compile works
by those who followed his example. In keeping with
the national spirit, the works featured cover all four of
Singapore’s official languages.
Relecting on
the Merlion:
An Anthology
of Poems
Edited by Julie Koh Math Paper Press,Singapore, 2016—English BGS, Singapore Collection
BooksActually’s Gold Standard 2016
Edited by Ng Yi-Sheng & Dan Koh TheatreWorks (Singapore) & Husken-Ulbrich Books LLP,Singapore, 2016 —English S822 FOR, Singapore Collection
Forty-Four Winning Plays from the TheatreWorks 24-Hour Playwriting Competition: Volume 3: 2014–2015
recommendation re ads
2
3
1
2322
editor
Natalina Pereira
writers
Chen Jieyun
Joey Chin
—
This publication is printed
on Cyclus Print. Its text
is set in Mercury and
Johnston ITC Std.
© National Library Board, Singapore 2017
the numbers & niches series
710: Landscape Architecture
Green Places
720: Architecture
Everyday Architecture
730: Sculpture
Toy Sculpture
740: Drawing and Design
Make It Work
750: Painting
Colours in Culture
760: Printing and Engraving
Silkscreen Printing
770: Photography
Old School Photography
780: Music
Music Journalism
790: Performing Arts
Setting the Stage
800: Literary Arts
Singapore Poetry and Prose
credits
1. © Credit https://www.lickr.com/photos/thomashawk/14802818959/
2. © Credit https://www.lickr.com/photos/jamesonink/12312916275/
3. © Credit https://www.lickr.com/photos/artbystevejohnson/4654256961/
4. https://www.lickr.com/photos/redbettyblack/382152883/
5. https://www.lickr.com/photos/115026014@N05/14166457491/
6. https://www.lickr.com/photos/marcwathieu/4359191491/in/photolist
7. Thomas, Dylan. Collected Poems. New York: New Directions, 2010. Print
8. Image of Tse Hao Guang reading by Jon Gresham
24
numbers & niches is a 10-part, monthly series of
talks and curated content based on the library’s
Arts Collection. Sequenced according to the Dewey
Decimal Classification, each issue shines a spotlight
on local practitioners and their specific art forms.
numbers & niches is now available online at
nlb.gov.sg/Browse/ArtsPublications.aspx!
We would love to know how you are enjoying
numbers & niches. Write to [email protected].
01
06
12
14
20
introduction
Singapore Poetry and Prose
A Writer's Notebook
Anatomy of a Poem
spotlight
Tse Hao Guang
Recommended Reads
in t hi s i s sue