X Minutes of Poetry: Recent Episodes
haoyang
Want to start appreciating poetry but don't know how? Or do you just want to relax after a long day at work? Join me as I explore the poems I love in however many minutes I wish.
Listen to Theophilus Kwek read 'The Angels' from HAUNT, the third issue of the sploosh! magazine.
Listen to Theophilus Kwek read 'Moving In' from HAUNT, the third issue of the sploosh! magazine.
Listen to Joy Huang read 'Falling Teeth: Season 5' from HAUNT, the third issue of the sploosh! magazine.
Listen to Elizabeth Deng read 'In My Worst Dreams, We Are Better People' from HAUNT, the third issue of the sploosh! magazine.
Hao Yang reads David Luke's English translation of Tonio Kröger (Part 1) by Thomas Mann.
In our second episode of Anaphora, Hao Yang and Jovan are joined by poet Noonherd as they discuss a rising online phenomenon—'instapoetry'.
Featuring poems by Noonherd and Hao Yang, as well as @satirewrites and @implausiette on Instagram.
Full poems can be found on our website.
'Red And Blue Contemplation On The Rolfsaker Man In Gothenburg‘s City Museum' from 'One To The Dark Tower Comes'.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of In Conversation With, a series of interviews with Singaporean writers, publishers, educators, and more. In this episode, my guest interviewer, Daryl Lim, and I speak to the ever-delightful Yeow Kai Chai about the philosophical and the literary, the nebulous and the granular. What is a good poem? What does it mean to 'understand' something? And for the KC fanboys, why lakes and towers? For one hour, the enigmatic author of 'Secret Manta', 'Pretend I'm Not Here', and 'One To The Dark Tower Comes' puts his cards on the table and gives us generous insight into his life and his mind.
Personally, I was completely confounded by my first reading of Dark Tower--the words formed an unscalable wall. But read again and again, without the academic need for comprehension, I began to simply immerse myself in the intriguing worlds the words conjured up--the wall was still unscalable (you can't say I know what a Kai Chai poem means exactly) but the bricks began to speak.
Kai Chai's voice is singular. Singularly coy. Its practised art of seduction--revealing itself slowly after repeated reading--betraying a sadomasochistic kink. For some, the foreplay can be frustrating and tiresome; for others, there is delight in the teasing and tussle.
Ultimately, despite the apparent suspension of meaning and feeling, it is a human voice I am encountering. Because it is playful. Kai Chai embraces the playfulness of postmodernism, and sure gets a kick out of it.
Colorful Flowers by Tokyo Music Walker | https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
Creative Commons CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Proust Questionnaire for the Proust Questioner himself!
Colorful Flowers by Tokyo Music Walker | https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
Creative Commons CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Listen toMiguel Barretto Garcia read Permacrisis Is Word Of The Year from sploosh! Issue 2: Vanishing.
Listen to Natalie Fock read her poem Minutes on a Wholehearted En-Bloc Sale from sploosh! Issue 2: Vanishing.
Tide over the remainder of 2023 with hosts Hao Yang and Jovan as they discuss Christmas and each present a poem of their own to mark the end of the year!
A gripping poem from an equally gripping collection (US: Acts of Self Consumption, 2023) by one of Singapore's most promising emerging poets.
Hao Yang shares some thoughts about war, and the role of literature in negotiating our relationship with the Other, which we should keep in mind as we consume media about human suffering in places far and wide.
Poems read:
1) W.H. Auden's The Unknown Citizen
2) 莫邪 【有一个战争在远方想我】
Read this arcadian poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44479/ode-to-a-nightingale
[Part 3 of 3]
In this episode, Hao Yang and his guest interviewer, Daryl Lim, chat with veteran writer Robert Yeo about a multitude of topics, ranging from a history of Singapore poetry and drama to anecdotes from his life and career, from experimental poetry to his forays into the various literary forms.
Listen to a conversation anchored in history, concerned about the present, and hopeful about the future.
Read the poem here: https://singaporeunbound.org/blog/2021/5/4/7th-singapore-poetry-contest-results
[Part 2 of 3]
In this episode, Hao Yang and his guest interviewer, Daryl Lim, chat with veteran writer Robert Yeo about a multitude of topics, ranging from a history of Singapore poetry and drama to anecdotes from his life and career, from experimental poetry to his forays into the various literary forms.
Listen to a conversation anchored in history, concerned about the present, and hopeful about the future.
[Part 1 of 3]
In this episode, Hao Yang and his guest interviewer, Daryl Lim, chat with veteran writer Robert Yeo about a multitude of topics, ranging from a history of Singapore poetry and drama to anecdotes from his life and career, from experimental poetry to his forays into the various literary forms.
Listen to a conversation anchored in history, concerned about the present, and hopeful about the future.
In this episode, Hao Yang and his guest interviewer, Daryl Lim, chat with veteran writer Robert Yeo about a multitude of topics, ranging from a history of Singapore poetry and drama to anecdotes from his life and career, from experimental poetry to his forays into the various literary forms.
Listen to a conversation anchored in history, concerned about the present, and hopeful about the future.
Depression in Early Spring
Erica Jong
Meathooks, notebooks,
the whole city sky palely flaming
& spectral bombs
hitting that patch of river
I see from my eastern window.
The poets are dead, the city dying.
Anne, Sylvia, Keats
with his passionate lungs,
Berryman jumping from the bridge & waving,
all the dreamers dead
of their own dreams.
Why have I stayed on as Horatio?
Anne sends poems from the grave,
Sylvia, letters.
John Keats's ghostly cough
comes through the wall board.
What am I doing here?
Why contend?
I am a corpse who moves a pen that writes.
I am a vessel for a voice that echoes.
I write a novel & annihilate whole forests.
I rearrange the cosmos by an inch.
Stephanie Dogfoot performs a set of poems at the 2023 National Day Reading hosted by Book Bar. Other performers include Jerrold Yam, Janelyn Dupingay, and Theophilus Kwek.
Music by Rachel W.yen: rachelwyen.com
For an immersive experience, head to thenational.space for the unabridged version of the stories, along with curated archival images and photography by Benedict Lim.
ABOUT THE WORK
Set amidst the city-state’s National Day celebrations across 1966, 1999, and 2020, our protagonists in each time period trudge against the currents of the social order to carve out a space in which they belong. Even in a city that is commonly regarded as a Southeast Asian ideal, queer migrants continue to wrestle between their sense of home, their ambitions, and familial and societal expectations. Our love may be intertwined with politics, but through that, we see courage, sacrifice, and hope.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Benedict is a sceptical idealist, forever dancing between two profundities. They were born and raised in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia. Based in Singapore since 2013, they are keen to explore storytelling in all its forms.In 2021, they worked on thenational.api—a commission for the inaugural Southeast Asian Queer Cultural Festival by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus. The same year, their short story, Your Life in Singapore, was published in Call and Response 2: A Singapore Migrant Anthology.
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
Music by Rachel W.yen: rachelwyen.com
For an immersive experience, head to thenational.space for the unabridged version of the stories, along with curated archival images and photography by Benedict Lim.
ABOUT THE WORK
Set amidst the city-state’s National Day celebrations across 1966, 1999, and 2020, our protagonists in each time period trudge against the currents of the social order to carve out a space in which they belong. Even in a city that is commonly regarded as a Southeast Asian ideal, queer migrants continue to wrestle between their sense of home, their ambitions, and familial and societal expectations. Our love may be intertwined with politics, but through that, we see courage, sacrifice, and hope.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Benedict is a sceptical idealist, forever dancing between two profundities. They were born and raised in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia. Based in Singapore since 2013, they are keen to explore storytelling in all its forms.In 2021, they worked on thenational.api—a commission for the inaugural Southeast Asian Queer Cultural Festival by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus. The same year, their short story, Your Life in Singapore, was published in Call and Response 2: A Singapore Migrant Anthology.
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
Music by Rachel W.yen: rachelwyen.com
For an immersive experience, head to thenational.space for the unabridged version of the stories, along with curated archival images and photography by Benedict Lim.
ABOUT THE WORK
Set amidst the city-state’s National Day celebrations across 1966, 1999, and 2020, our protagonists in each time period trudge against the currents of the social order to carve out a space in which they belong. Even in a city that is commonly regarded as a Southeast Asian ideal, queer migrants continue to wrestle between their sense of home, their ambitions, and familial and societal expectations. Our love may be intertwined with politics, but through that, we see courage, sacrifice, and hope.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Benedict is a sceptical idealist, forever dancing between two profundities. They were born and raised in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia. Based in Singapore since 2013, they are keen to explore storytelling in all its forms.In 2021, they worked on thenational.api—a commission for the inaugural Southeast Asian Queer Cultural Festival by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus. The same year, their short story, Your Life in Singapore, was published in Call and Response 2: A Singapore Migrant Anthology.
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
ABOUT THE WORK
Recipe for an Amanda Ruiqing Flynn story: 500g of the human heart, 100ml of poetry, a generous helping of loss, a heaped tablespoonful of social commentary, a dash of bittersweet, and a whole lot of life. The end results are delicious, though never the same. “Yearning” is a story about class, love, loss, and remembering. It delves into the role of a domestic helper in Singapore beyond the stereotypes we are sold.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Amanda Ruiqing Flynn is an artist, writer, Chinese-English translator and creative writing teacher who has lived and worked in the UK, Taiwan and Singapore. She holds a BA in Chinese and Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, and an MFA in Art and Design from National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. She is drawn to writing short stories, poetry and children’s stories. Her stories take us from the everyday into secret places inside our hearts. Amanda was one of the winners of Singapore’s Writing the City Competition in 2022. She is the author-illustrator of The Woof that Went Weng, her first children’s picture book, which will be published by Balestier Press in 2024. She was recently a speaker at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2023. On most days, she is chief storyteller to her son.
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com, https://pixabay.com, and https://mixkit.co/.
ABOUT THE WORK
prayer for the (un)familiar, wish we __ in the 2000s and another grandpa poem situate themselves between fantasy and heartbreak, melodramatic what ifs, and the growing pains and joys of being twenty something.
These poems are the writer's attempts to find their way home to themselves through tongue-in-cheek performances of romance and different iterations of love.
ABOUT THE WRITER
nor’s artistic practice hopes to situate belonging and community within speculative timelines. Their works span the disciplines of photography, film, video, performance, text and spoken word poetry to engage with ideas of belonging and identity through frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. They presented a solo exhibition In Love at Coda Culture (2018, Singapore), and has shown at group exhibitions including An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season at the National Gallery Singapore (2020-2021), MAT at the Objectifs - Centre for Photography & Film (2019, Singapore), My Body, Your Body, Their Body at Kawanishi Gallery (2019, Japan) and Minor Infelicites at Post Territory Ujeongguk (2020, South Korea).
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
ABOUT THE WORK
prayer for the (un)familiar, wish we __ in the 2000s and another grandpa poem situate themselves between fantasy and heartbreak, melodramatic what ifs, and the growing pains and joys of being twenty something.
These poems are the writer's attempts to find their way home to themselves through tongue-in-cheek performances of romance and different iterations of love.
ABOUT THE WRITER
nor’s artistic practice hopes to situate belonging and community within speculative timelines. Their works span the disciplines of photography, film, video, performance, text and spoken word poetry to engage with ideas of belonging and identity through frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. They presented a solo exhibition In Love at Coda Culture (2018, Singapore), and has shown at group exhibitions including An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season at the National Gallery Singapore (2020-2021), MAT at the Objectifs - Centre for Photography & Film (2019, Singapore), My Body, Your Body, Their Body at Kawanishi Gallery (2019, Japan) and Minor Infelicites at Post Territory Ujeongguk (2020, South Korea).
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call for proposals.
ABOUT THE WORK
prayer for the (un)familiar, wish we __ in the 2000s and another grandpa poem situate themselves between fantasy and heartbreak, melodramatic what ifs, and the growing pains and joys of being twenty something.
These poems are the writer's attempts to find their way home to themselves through tongue-in-cheek performances of romance and different iterations of love.
ABOUT NOR (IG: @homesick.docx)
nor’s artistic practice hopes to situate belonging and community within speculative timelines. Their works span the disciplines of photography, film, video, performance, text and spoken word poetry to engage with ideas of belonging and identity through frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. They presented a solo exhibition In Love at Coda Culture (2018, Singapore), and has shown at group exhibitions including An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season at the National Gallery Singapore (2020-2021), MAT at the Objectifs - Centre for Photography & Film (2019, Singapore), My Body, Your Body, Their Body at Kawanishi Gallery (2019, Japan) and Minor Infelicites at Post Territory Ujeongguk (2020, South Korea).
ABOUT SPLOOSH! PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Sing Lit writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium. The texts featured in wave 1 are themed around longing. Look out for our next open call on our socials (IG: @sploosh_sg).
'Improvisation on Guzheng and Voice 2' by Marla Bendini (IG: @marlabendiniart).
Marla Bendini (she/her/they/them) is a cross-disciplinary trans and non-binary artist working in painting, text, sound and performance to articulate the infinitely faceted transgender experience on their own terms. Marla makes art that center personal histories, to talk about love, relationships, queerness, trauma and more importantly, growth & recovery. She believes our storytelling is important and the transformative power of introspection in art-making and experience can precipitate constructive individual and social change. (IG @marlabendiniart)
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
Erratum: The Little India riot happened in 2013, not 2015. Nicholas and Hao Yang discuss a play which they watched three weeks ago, HOTEL.
Purchase the HOTEL script here: https://www.wildrice.com.sg/hotel-script-order-form/
Read Hao Yang's essay here: https://splooshsg.wixsite.com/sploosh/post/hotel-reflections
Kimberley Chia (she/her) is Singapore-born and Paris-based. Her poetry has been published/is forthcoming in ANMLY, Clare Market Review and Sine Theta Magazine, among others, and was shortlisted for Sing Lit Station’s 2021 Manuscript Bootcamp. When not writing, she is exploring movement, working at an international organisation, and cooking elaborate soups.
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
'Improvisation on Guzheng and Voice 1' by Marla Bendini (IG: @marlabendiniart).
Marla Bendini (she/her/they/them) is a cross-disciplinary trans and non-binary artist working in painting, text, sound and performance to articulate the infinitely faceted transgender experience on their own terms. Marla makes art that center personal histories, to talk about love, relationships, queerness, trauma and more importantly, growth & recovery. She believes our storytelling is important and the transformative power of introspection in art-making and experience can precipitate constructive individual and social change. (IG @marlabendiniart)
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
Meihan is the author of The Formidable Miss Cassidy (Epigram Books Fiction Prize co-winner 2021), its upcoming sequel The Enigmatic Madam Ingran (shortlisted for EBFP 2023), and The Messiah Virus (2019). Her short stories have appeared in 2022's Fish Eats Lion Redux, and the horror anthology, Fright.
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
Interdisciplinary artist Marla Bendini (IG: @marlabendiniart) performs two improvisations on guzheng and voice.
Marla Bendini (she/her/they/them) is a cross-disciplinary trans and non-binary artist working in painting, text, sound and performance to articulate the infinitely faceted transgender experience on their own terms. Marla makes art that center personal histories, to talk about love, relationships, queerness, trauma and more importantly, growth & recovery. She believes our storytelling is important and the transformative power of introspection in art-making and experience can precipitate constructive individual and social change. (IG @marlabendiniart)
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
'The Ping Pong Song' by Jennifer Anne Champion.
Jennifer Anne Champion is a writer and performance poet of mixed heritage. She has been described by Juice Magazine as gifted with “swift, animated style”. Jennifer has performed her work in Edinburgh, Berlin and Israel and is a regular voice in the Singapore spoken word scene. In 2015, she released her first solo work of poetry—A History of Clocks (Red Wheelbarrow Books). Her second collection with Math Paper Press under the Ten Year Series imprint is titled Caterwaul (2016).
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
'Raffles Link' by Jennifer Anne Champion.
Jennifer Anne Champion is a writer and performance poet of mixed heritage. She has been described by Juice Magazine as gifted with “swift, animated style”. Jennifer has performed her work in Edinburgh, Berlin and Israel and is a regular voice in the Singapore spoken word scene. In 2015, she released her first solo work of poetry—A History of Clocks (Red Wheelbarrow Books). Her second collection with Math Paper Press under the Ten Year Series imprint is titled Caterwaul (2016).
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
Euginia Tan is a multi-disciplinary writer based in Singapore. She has experience in various creative forms including poetry, prose and theatre. Her third poetry collection, Phedra (Ethos Books) was nominated for the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize. Her play-writing credits include Holidays (under mentorship of Joel Tan), Tuition (Twenty Something Theatre Festival), Modest Travels (produced by Tan Kheng Hua for Uniqlo), Fortunes (The Necessary Stage Playwrights’ Cove), The Rat Trap (Gateway Theatre Artist-In-Residence).
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
'Dear Mr Accordion Man At Bishan MRT' by Jennifer Anne Champion.
Jennifer Anne Champion is a writer and performance poet of mixed heritage. She has been described by Juice Magazine as gifted with “swift, animated style”. Jennifer has performed her work in Edinburgh, Berlin and Israel and is a regular voice in the Singapore spoken word scene. In 2015, she released her first solo work of poetry—A History of Clocks (Red Wheelbarrow Books). Her second collection with Math Paper Press under the Ten Year Series imprint is titled Caterwaul (2016).
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
David Wong Hsien Ming discovered poetry as a child at a Sunday lunch. His work explores the dualities, contradictions and absurdities of being, and has appeared on platforms like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Mascara Literary Review. His first collection, For the End Comes Reaching, is a meditation on the sense of loss that accompanies each having.
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
Singer-Songwriter-Poet-Textile Artist Jennifer Anne Champion performs a set of three songs at sploosh! session #3, namely Dear Mr Accordion Man at Bishan MRT, Raffles Link, and The Ping Pong Song.
Jennifer Anne Champion is a writer and performance poet of mixed heritage. She has been described by Juice Magazine as gifted with “swift, animated style”. Jennifer has performed her work in Edinburgh, Berlin and Israel and is a regular voice in the Singapore spoken word scene. In 2015, she released her first solo work of poetry—A History of Clocks (Red Wheelbarrow Books). Her second collection with Math Paper Press under the Ten Year Series imprint is titled Caterwaul (2016).
Donate to keep us going at https://ko-fi.com/splooshsg
Kevin Martens Wong is a gay, non-binary Kristang / Portuguese-Eurasian speculative fiction writer, independent scholar and linguist born, bred and based in Singapore. He leads the internationally-recognised grassroots movement to revitalise the Kristang language in Singapore, Kodrah Kristang, and currently runs his own freelance coaching and consulting initiative, Merlionsman (merlionsman.com).
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
JY Tan is a student from Singapore. Her work appears in Salamander, Lunch Ticket and Rust + Moth among other journals. She also edits for Body Without Organs (on hiatus). She enjoys learning about love languages, and creating Spotify playlists. Visit her at jy tan.
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
Cheng Him is based in Singapore. Their work has been featured in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS), The Kindling, Tiger Moth Review among many others. They are part of the writing group known as the ATOM Collective.
Read the magazine here: https://issuu.com/splooshsg/docs/issue_one_rise
In this episode, Hao Yang reads a poem he wrote back in 2021 that first came to him through the image of a tug of war between the mother and the baby, with the umbilical cord between them. He also reflects on the real-life incidents and conversations that have contributed to the creation of the poem. For many queer children, their relationship with their parents are complicated by feelings of love and resentment, duty and betrayal, guilt and disappointment, and so they turn to their chosen families instead, since they offer unconditional love and total acceptance.
To anyone who may relate, know you aren't alone.
And, to mummy, thank you, after all.
A Tamil poem written by Piramil.
"Separated from the wing, a feather writes the story of a bird in the endless pages of the wind."
itu ramalanpendirian yang tidak berpijakpada lahan kenyataanitu andaiankesombongan yang tidak jenuhmenguji kebenaranjam limahujan lagiitu cuba ujiuntuk menandingi hakikisiapa yang sengajamenconteng grafiti takdirdi dinding bumiberiman hatiada hamun makibernada puisiyang tidak adadi dalam kamus rasmiceriteralahjika ada yang beranimelawan gelombang bongkakberkaryalahdengan novel yang engganditelanjangi ketakutanbersajaklahdengan cerpentanpa pakaianterhadap perkataandan kawalan mauduk kandunganberpantunlahdalam rangkap-rangkapmengharap adabtanpa susunanrima kebiasaanyang sudah lapuk berzaman
that’s a predictiona stance without footingon the land of realitythat’s an assumptionarrogance that doesn't stopprotesting actualityat fiveit rains againtrying to challengetrying to compete with certaintywhoever deliberatelyscribbles the graffiti of fateon the walls of the earthhis heart filled with faiththere exists obscenitywith poetic harmonythat doesn’t existin the dictionarytell the storyif anyone’s braveto fight the waves of vanitywrite the storya novel which refusesto be denuded by timiditywrite the poetrya short prosenakedfrom suppression of wordsand forbiddance of meaningwrite the poemthe stanzasproposing affabilitywithout the usual structurewithout the same rhymethe archaic rhyme swallowed by time
In this episode, Hao Yang and Saara sit down for a conversation with Kristian-Marc James Paul and Mysara Aljaru, co-editors of Brown is Redacted: Reflecting on Race in Singapore (Ethos Books, 2022).
6:15 Defining 'Brownness'
9:50 Concept of Anthology
14:10 Reception
18:10 Reflections on Editorial Process
27:00 Importance of Brown Representation in Singlit
30:30 Experience in Literary Scene and Advice for Young Brown Writers
36:00 Minority Pressures
39:20 Majority Allyship
48:30 Brown Masculinity
1:04:00 Malay Studies
1:09:00 Malay Literature
1:12:25 What's Next?
Hao Yang reads 'A History of Sandcastles' (from 'Chasing Curtained Suns') by Jerrold Yam.
Jovan, Saara, and Hao Yang perform a dramatic reading of Act 5 Scene 5 from Macbeth, Shakespeare's gothic play about fate and ambition, witches and insanity, accompanied with the much-memed vine boom sound effect.
diam-diam
lapan baris tidask cukup untuk menerangkan gelap mendadak di ruang
sempit yang meggentel masa mengecil terselit di celahan di gigiku yang lama reput dan nafasku yang
tersangkut di antara kertas tipis dan kuman naik angin. lapan baris tidak cukup untuk aku
merapikan ronyok isiku yang berkucar-kacir di dalam pelukan masa depan yang tercicir
entahlah dekat mana sambil aku meraba-raba jatuh tergolek terseret gerun yang membisik
manja di kuping telingaku. mungkin lapan baris ini cukup sahaja buat sekarang
karang untuk diam-diam seperti batu yang melihat semuanya walaupun tidak bermata
silent
eight lines aren't enough to describe the sudden darkness in this space
crammed, rolling my life into a pellet rotting in between my teeth and my breath
trapped in between thin papers, raging with germs. eight lines aren't enough for me
to iron out myself, crumpled in the clasp of a future lost
i don't know where, as i grapple and fall and dragged by fear that whispers
with affection into my ears. maybe these eight lines are just enough for now
later i'll be silent like a stone who sees everything even without eyes
Taken From New Singapore Poetries (US: Gaudy Boy, 2022)
Jovan, Saara, and Hao Yang perform a dramatic reading of Act 4 Scene 1 (the famous 'double, double toil and trouble' scene) from Macbeth, Shakespeare's gothic play about fate and ambition, accompanied with the much-memed vine boom sound effect. Credits: (Ominous Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
"Pantun is a disjunctive form of poetry which always come in two parts, the first part being the prefatory statement called pembayang or sampiran that has no immediate logical or the narrative connection with the second or closing statement called maksud or isi." - Wikipedia
yang kurik itu kundi
yang merah itu saga
yang baik itu budi
yang indah itu bahasa
translation:
those (saga seeds) destined in spots are weights
those (saga seeds) written in red are sandal beads
the good lies in one's kindness
the greatest beauty lies in the language
Jovan, Saara, and Hao Yang perform a dramatic reading of Act 3 Scene 4 from Macbeth, William Shakespeare's gothic play about fate and ambition, accompanied with the much-memed vine boom sound effect.
shadow
the night is so great
i get to talk to you
you understand my cheap excuses
today i have a secret
are you there
i have secrets for your ears only
come out
even if only behind my back
every time i'm unhappy
i would lower my head
tonight am i not unhappy enough
or have i already
forgotten my unhappiness
forgotten about you
前不见古人，后不见来者。
念天地之悠悠，独怆然而涕下！no sages before me, and no prophets to come
brooding on the vastness of the universe, my lonesome tears begin to fall
தொலைந்த கனா
(Tholaintha Kanaa)
Within the wet noses
Of the crocodiles straddling this beach
The lukewarm river
Lies sideways.
Why is it
That you are asking
For the freedom to dream?
The river that flows valiantly in torrents
Shall wage a solo war against the sunlight
For all to watch.
The forest that is
The stench of raw flesh
Stuck between the teeth of crocodiles.
You too,
Brim like the river
As treasure troves of diamonds.
White sailboats
Circle the beacon of hope in the west
And journey the hillsides of the ocean.
In the crocodiles’ eyes that burn like copper
A headwater of centuries’ worth of your dreams
Flows like an ash-hued river.
Ini nasi yang kusuap (Masuri S.N)
Ini nasi yang kusuap
pernah sekali menjadi padi harap
melentok dipuput angin pokoknya kerap
tenang berisi tunduk menatap
Ini butir nasi yang kukunyah
sedang kutelan melalui tekak basah
jadi dari darah mengalir
dalam badan gerak berakhir
Angin kencang mentari khatulistiwa
membakar raga petani di sawah
panas hujan dan tenaga masuk kira
dan nasi yang kusuap campuran dari manusia
Ini budi yang kusambut
pemberian lumrah beranting dan bertaut
ini nasi hasil dari — kerja
kembali pada siapa yang patut menerima
Jadi yang kumakan bukan berasal dari nasi
tapi peluh, darah, dalam isi mengalir pasti
jadi kutelan bukan berasal dari padi
tapi dari urat dari nadi seluruh pak tani
eng translation:
this is the rice i eat
which once was a paddy of hope
its tree often bent, blown by wind
sits calmly filled, and bows canvassingly
this is the grain of rice that i consume
while swallowed through the moist throat
part of the blood that flows, it communes
in the body, moving till its end
the strong wind the equatorial sun
swelters farmers in the field
the heat, rain and energy that run
and the rice that i eat, a synthesis of people that yield
this is the kindness i accept
a natural gift, branchy and connecting
this rice is from hardwork in effect
returns to whoever is deserving
Hence, what i consume does not originate from rice
But the sweat and blood flowing in it is certain
hence what i swallow does not originate from wheat
but wholely from the veins and pulse of the farmers
My Aspiration
Huang Kai De
Since young
I had known
The secret behind
My melancholy.
One day, our teacher
Made us write an essay
About our aspirations
I picked up my pen, thought for a while,
And peered at the neighboring boy whose gaze
Was fixed with anticipation on faraway Mars.
And so, with floating frivolity,
I wished only for
My Adam’s apple to grow
So I may, with a hardened courage,
Love, so carefully,
Another whose apple would soon grow
As well.
I was not honest
I did not write in neat characters
My inner wayward thoughts
Nonetheless, as expected, I aged into
The huskiness of maturity
What happened after has of course
Been forgotten by all
To finally land on Mars is less tragic, less grand
Than to live out a human life on Earth
But whenever I look up
At my childhood sky
That still is
My aspiration
Translated by Hao Yang
Pearl Banki.m. 1976-2019The pillars, too, regret this.The columns are full of outcry, staircasesweep, and the glass doors,whose wheels are still running in their tracks.In the driveway, left in haste,are possessions too big for the moving-van:a bedframe, a mahjong tablewith its tiles discarded, a winning hand.After this morning’s rain,a smell of death has come to roost amongthe debris. Look closely,someone has emptied out the living,out here, onto the street.It is a difficult thing, to see a buildinggape, and gape even widerthan the gap between its two front teeth.Maybe it was the architecturethat singled it out. Socialist,so, unfit for our times.No room now for rooms like these,level lives, a piece of God’sblue sky for everyone. Capital, land –the price has changed, thoughold factors remain. What, then?something new must come.There will be rain again, and rain overthe earth, till another grainsleeps, wakes, becomes a pearl.By Theophilus Kwek
春夜喜雨 （杜甫）
Translated by Prof. Stephen Owen
好雨知时节，当春乃发生。
A good rain knows its appointed time,
right in spring it brings things to life.
随风潜入夜，润物细无声。
It enters the night unseen with the wind
and moistens things finely, without a sound.
野径云俱黑，江船火独明。
Over wilderness paths, the clouds are all black,
a boat on the river, its fire alone bright.
晓看红湿处，花重锦官城。
At daybreak look where it’s wet and red —
the flowers will be heavy in Brocade City.
happy poem
huang kai de
i write you into a
fine & lovely poem
so i may with good cheer
get closer & pretend it’s chance
you say hey you’re here too
& i say this is my
perfect-est work
Translated by Hao Yang
This month, listen in on a conversation between Laura Jane, Saara, and Theophilus Kwek, author of Giving Ground and Moving House, among others.
timestamps
poem that resonates with him right now (1:35)
what are you reading right now (5:30)
what does it mean to you to be a writer (6:35)
intersection between writing life and day job (7:25)
what does singlit mean to you (8:40)
singapore's history and national identity (11:05)
writing discipline (12:50)
how has the subject matter of his poetry changed (20:05)
writing process -- tying to physical locale? (22:25)
favourite/ least favourite collection of his (23:50)
differences in industry and market in UK and singapore (25:10)
under-/overrepresented voices in local poetry (29:15)
type of english writing produced in singapore now (34:25)
poetry red flags (37:25)
poetry green flags (41:05)
desert island playlist (43:45)
being published at a very young age - 18 (45:15)
greatest inspirations and influences (47:45)
best piece of advice you can give as a friend (51:35)
what can you not stand about writers in their writing (52:50)
Gently Is My Longing Boiled
Zhou De Cheng
The living: weary; the dead: weary
The wind bends at its waist, and even the night knows no rest
To stand: ennui; to sit: ennui
The joss stick curls, and I would rather be half-asleep than wide awake
Hesitation ruthlessly softens your legs
Grief deeply runs through your furrowed brows
The fire boils my longing so slowly, so slowly
Smoke trailing our offerings into the air so gently, so gently
Translated by Hao Yang
'And I still wait for the day when someone figures out how to do a proper critique or review of spoken word, to properly recognise and discuss the nearly two decades of evolution and development in that scene in Singapore.' - Joshua Ip, 'Where Have All The Critics Gone?' (2019)
Saara and Hao Yang discuss the first sploosh! session, going through the definition of spoken word and evaluating individual performances (yes, all). This is rare: spoken word criticism in Singapore. And via the aural format.
Hao Yang and Anurak chat with Daryl Lim about #inaneasylum and ask him questions from the audience.
Hao Yang reads 'Dreaming of a City of Books' (from A Book of Changes) by Daryl Lim Wei Jie.
Hao Yang and Anurak chat with Daryl Lim about A Book of Changes and the study of History.
(Part 1 of 3) Hao Yang and Anurak chat with Daryl Lim about Anything But Human and other relevant concerns.
In this episode, Hao Yang and Anurak chat with Daryl Lim (author of 'A Book of Changes' and 'Anything But Human') about his oeuvre as well as other topics related to local literature. Daryl answers four of our audience questions: three literary and one ornithological (my favourite).
Timestamps:
1:50 defamiliarisation of language in anything but human
3:30 influences on anything but human
4:25 influence of chinese literature
6:05 ‘palette cleansers’ in anything but human
7:40 anything bot human
8:55 nonsensical language
10:35 desert of the real
11:45 inaccessible writing? ideal reader?
13:55 language as medium, as artifice
14:55 the prophet figure
16:45 discount motif
18:15 influence of covid-19 pandemic
20:10 credo
25:40 adapted pantoum
27:05 what has writing anything but human done for you?
31:20 a book of changes
35:35 streets and places of singapore
40:40 inane asylum
43:40 ten year series batch of poets
45:55 advice for young writers
46:35 state of singlit now
48:25 problems and opportunities in singlit
51:05 should we all be anything but human
51:30 why bird?
Hao Yang reads 'A Phenomenological Cookbook' (from Anything But Human) by Daryl Lim Wei Jie.
Jovan reads April 6, Wednesday by Jee Leong Koh, and discusses it with Hao Yang and Girish.
Hao Yang reads Pilgrim Crow by Crispin Rodrigues, and discusses the poem with Jovan and Girish.
Jovan, Girish, and Hao Yang read and discuss a whopping four poems for the topic of 'Thirst'--Pilgrim Crow by Crispin Rodrigues, April 6, Wednesday by Jee Leong Koh, Thirst by Mary Oliver, and Thirst by Alice Jones.
《登鹳雀楼》
余光中
白日， 已落到山後
黃河， 前浪早已入了海
後浪， 源自雪水
還有得流呢， 千年萬代
你真要上樓去望遠嗎
就讓我陪著你吧
像穿越電影那樣
你帶我去指點盛唐
我帶你， 唉
去回顧二十一世紀
Climbing Stork Tower
(Translated by Hao Yang)
The sun has set behind the hills
The river has washed into the sea
Of course, it still flows, endlessly,
From snow caps, for generations to come…
Do you really want to view the scene from atop?
Fine, let me tag along.
Just like time travel movies.
You shall show me the glories of the Tang,
And I shall, well,
Run you through the 21st century.
No longer shall I cry
(Translated by Hao Yang)
In that languid, sleepless night,
No longer shall I cry, no longer shall I cry.
In that languid, sleepless night,
When the ice-cold glare of the lizard on the wall
Meets my melancholy gaze;
When the lakeside choir draws to an end,
Leaving behind a lonesome frog speaking to itself;
When fireflies prop up a dusk-orange candle flame,
As though searching for lost memories;
When troupes of mosquitoes tire after a night of ballet,
Returning to rest before the break of dawn;
In that languid, sleepless night,
No longer, no longer shall I cry.
However deep, depthless the scars of the soul,
They cannot be bathed in tears too warm,
Cannot be probed with tears too shallow,
Nor rinsed with tears too dilute.
《母难日》
余光中
今生今世
今生今世，
我最忘情的哭声有两次，
一次在我生命的开始，
一次在你生命的告终，
第一次我不会记得是听你说的，
第二次你不会晓得我说也没用，
但两次哭声的中间啊！
有无穷无尽的笑声，
一遍一遍又一遍，
回荡了整整三十年，
你都晓得我都记得。
矛盾世界
快乐的世界啊
当初我们见面
你迎我以微笑
而我答你以大哭
惊天，动地
悲哀的世界啊
最后我们分手
我送你以大哭
而你答我以无言
关天，闭地
矛盾的世界啊
不论初见或永别
我总是对你以大哭
哭世界始于你一笑
而幸福终于你闭目
天国地府
每年到母难日
总握着电话筒
很想拨一个电话
给久别的母亲
只为了再听一次
一次也好
催眠的磁性母音
但是她住的地方
不知是什么号码
何况她已经睡了
不能接我的电话
“这里是长途台
究竟你要
接哪一个国家？”
我该怎么回答呢？
天国，是什么字头？
地府，有多少区号？
那不耐的接线生
卡挞把线路切断
留给我手里一截
算是电线呢还是若断若连的脐带
就算真的接通了
又能够说些什么
“这世界从你走后
变得已不能指认
唯一不变的只有
对你永久的感恩”
The Day of Mother's Passing
(Translated by Hao Yang)
In this life
In this life
I have cried most miserably but twice
Once, when my life first began
Once, at your life’s end
I do not remember the former. I heard it from you.
The latter… you will not know. Useless for me to say more.
But in between both cries
There were endless laughters
Again, again and again
Echoing for thirty whole years
You were there, and I remember
World of Contradiction
The world of joy:
When we first met
You greeted me with a smile
I replied with cries
That shook the earth.
The world of grief:
At last we parted
I sent you off, weeping
While you replied with silence
And that was it.
O world of contradiction
Whether first union or eternal parting
I always faced you with my tears
Lamenting that the world began with your smile
And bliss ended as you slept.
Heaven and Hell
Every year, on the day of your passing,
I would grip the telephone, wishing
To make a call to you, mother who has long
Departed, just to hear, for just once more,
Just once more,
Your magnetic, hypnotic voice.
But I do not know the address
Where my mother stays
What’s more, she’s fast asleep,
Unable to pick up the phone.
“Long-distance operator here. To which country
Are you exactly trying
To reach?”
How should I respond?
Heaven… what postal code?
Hell… which district?
The impatient operator
Hangs up,
Leaving me with
A phone cord or
An umbilical cord.
And even if I reached her,
What could I possibly say
“Ever since you left, this world
Is no longer recognisable.
The only thing that has not changed
Is the eternal gratitude I have for you.”
输是最后总归要输的连人带绳都跌过界去于是游戏终止----又一场不公平的竞争但对岸的力量一分神也会失手，会踏过界来一只半只留下脚印的奇迹，愕然天机唯暗里，绳索的另一头紧而不断，久而愈强究竟，是怎样一个对手踉跄过界之前谁也未见过只风吹星光颤不休，剩我与永恒拔河Tug-of-War with Eternity(Translated by Hao Yang）Ultimately, those who shall lose will loseEven your body will tumble over the lineAnd so the game ends.--Yet another unfair contestBut however strong the opponent, once distracted,They may also lose their grip, and tumble overA vague miracle that leaves behindFootprints, stunned by the cosmic secretIn the dark, the other end of the ropeDoes not budge, tightening as I pullI wonder what kind of opponentTumbles overInvisibleThe wind blows, the stars twinkleJust me endlesslyTugging at eternity
《夸父》余光中为什么要苦苦去挽救黄昏呢?那只是落日的背影也不必吸大泽与长河那只是落日的倒影与其穷追苍茫的暮景埋没在紫霭的冷烬——何不回身挥杖迎面奔向新绽的旭阳去探千瓣之光的蕊心?壮士的前途不在昨夜，在明晨西奔是徒劳，奔回东方吧追不上了，就撞上！Kua Fu(Translated by Hao Yang)Why seek to recoup the evening in vain?It is just the silhouette of the setting sunAnd there is no need to swallow all seas and riversThey are just the reflection of the setting sunInstead of chasing the dusk that fades away andBurying yourself in the embers of a violet fog--why not turn around andRun towards the blooming resplendent sun,the teeming petals of glory?A warrior’s future lies not in yesterday’s night, but in tomorrow’s dawnTo run westwards is futile. Run back to the east.Since catching up is not possible, bang into it..
Parting at Night
(Translated by Hao Yang)
Inch your eyes closer to mine,
Let me gaze again at the stars that twinkle in the sea.
Whence comes the tide that smudges starlight?
Are they teardrops, are they yours or mine?
By your earlobe, your silky hair swims in the wind,
And in turn, the moonlight ebbs and flows through it;
My soul trembles, just like the moonlight,
Like a falling leaf bidding farewell to an autumnal tree.
As saplings grow watered by summer showers,
The budding shoots, just falling in love, in my tears secretly grow.
Until they have grown into old giant trees,
Who knows where the gentle hands that planted them have gone!
Your back vanishes into the black of night, and discreetly
I hear the closing of the doors of heaven.
I am Altair without his Vega,
Accompanied only by a lamenting reed.
Happy New Year! Hao Yang reads 'April 17, Sunday' by Jee Leong Koh, and discusses it with Jovan.
Cover Artwork: Morning Sun, 1952 by Edward Hopper
Happy new year! In this episode, Jovan and Hao Yang share their 2022 reflections and hopes for 2023. They then read and discuss 'April 17, Sunday' by Jee Leong Koh and 'First Date' by Cyril Wong, both poems being attempts at seizing control of one's narrative and moving on, be it the wrestling back of hope and agency in Jee's disaffected 'April 17' or the rewriting of an ended relationship to seek closure.
Cover Artwork: Edward Hopper's Morning Sun, 1952; photograph taken by Hao Yang in Haw Par Villa
Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate”
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
“I hate” she altered with an end
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away.
“I hate” from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying “not you.”
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee;
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, 'Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.'
The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
'Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.'
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
'Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.'
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.
The lamp said,
'Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.'
The last twist of the knife.
T. S. Eliot, "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" from Collected Poems: 1909-1962. Copyright © 2020 by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd..
Source: Collected Poems: 1909-1962 (Faber and Faber, Ltd., 2020)
Hao Yang reads Act IV from 'Uncle Vanya' by Anton Chekhov. Reading begins at around the 4 minute mark.
Artwork on Cover: Tales of the Ember (Elina Waage Mikalsen)Burning the Old YearBY NAOMI SHIHAB NYELetters swallow themselves in seconds.Notes friends tied to the doorknob,transparent scarlet paper,sizzle like moth wings,marry the air.So much of any year is flammable,lists of vegetables, partial poems.Orange swirling flame of days,so little is a stone.Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.I begin again with the smallest numbers.Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,only the things I didn’t docrackle after the blazing dies.Naomi Shihab Nye, “Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
—Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and A Memoir 1969-1980
https://www.alyve.org/english/docs/9.1/Rilke-Letters_to_a_Young_Poet.pdf
"We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them."
Hao Yang reads 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg.
Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
Jovan discusses 'The Gallery' by Andrew Marvell.
Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48326/the-gallery
Cover Artwork: Madonna, Edvard Munch
Hao Yang discusses horror in literature, with particular focus on the psychological horror that grew increasingly popular from the 20th century onwards. He then reads 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg (yes, the entire thing) and talks about a few lines in greater detail.
Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Hao Yang reads 'Solomon's Wisdom Didn't Keep' by Mark Neely.
Solomon's Wisdom Didn't Keep
Mark Neely
Solomon’s wisdom didn’t keep
him from pining for sleek
horses, so how am I—with no
direct warnings from above—
to keep my mind off you in the bar
mirror fifteen years ago watching
ice pour from the sky, when
we still believed in winter
and bartenders and Peter Buck,
believed no harm could come to us
from mixing Bass and Bushmills
and watching hipsters flaunt
fake fur and silver studs
by the orange heaters
until we were thrown out
into the frozen park
where the glassy trees
reminded us of us,
wrapped brightly
in their misery.
Text: https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/solomons-wisdom-didnt-keep/
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer;
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to th’ course of alt’ring things—
Alas, why, fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say “Now I love you best,”
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe. Then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.
Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O, ’tis the first: ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectively is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flow’r, or shape which it doth latch.
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus makes mine untrue.
Jovan discusses 'The Merlion' by Alfian Sa'at.
Cover Artwork: Ang Song Nian, Your Blank Stare Left Me At Sea, 2013
Jovan discusses 'Ulysses by the Merlion' by Edwin Thumboo.
Cover Artwork: Ang Song Nian, Your Blank Stare Left Me At Sea, 2013
In this episode, Jovan discusses heroes in poetry, coupled with analyses of Edwin Thumboo's 'Ulysses by the Merlion' and Alfian Sa'at's 'The Merlion'.
Artwork on Cover: Ang Song Nian, Your Blank Stare Left Me At Sea, 2013
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O! what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
Against that time, if ever that time come,When I shall see thee frown on my defects,When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,Called to that audit by advis’d respects;Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,When love, converted from the thing it was,Shall reasons find of settled gravity;Against that time do I ensconce me here,Within the knowledge of mine own desert,And this my hand, against my self uprear,To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,Since why to love I can allege no cause.
How can I then return in happy plight,That am debarred the benefit of rest?When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,But day by night and night by day oppress’d,And each, though enemies to either’s reign,Do in consent shake hands to torture me,The one by toil, the other to complainHow far I toil, still farther off from thee.I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one more heinous crime: O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen! Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
born 19.6.32—deported 24.9.42
Undesirable you may have been, untouchable you were not. Not forgotten or passed over at the proper time.
As estimated, you died. Things marched, sufficient, to that end. Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries.
(I have made an elegy for myself it is true)
September fattens on vines. Roses flake from the wall. The smoke of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.
This is plenty. This is more than enough.
- Geoffrey Hill
Laura reads 'Wild Geese' by Mary Oliver, a poem that offers refrains of meditative, therapeutic quality, a poem for the trembling wild geese in each and every one of us, waiting to take flight into this cold, harsh world.
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
saara reads 'dream song 29' by john berryman.
Dream Song 29 by John Berryman
There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry's ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.
And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;
thinking.
But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.
insyirah reads 'words' by sylvia plath.
Words
Sylvia Plath
Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
girish reads 'neighbours' by alfian sa'at.
Neighbours
Alfian Sa'at
During Hari Raya she knocks on my conscience,
I knock on her door and I give her cakes.
She says she likes them and gives me
Sweets with gelatine inside. I throw them away.
Poor woman, doesn’t know how to make cakes.
Her children eat Maggi after school every day.
That's why the elder one is in Normal stream
And the younger one can't spell her name.
If I was her age I wouldn't be wearing shorts at home.
No shame, she doesn't know how to hide her womanhood.
When the children are naughty and I beat them
I close the door: I hear she's a gossip.
But she beats her children harder than I do
What to do her children are like that.
I once hear her scream she wanted to kill herself.
These people never value their own lives.
Other times I see her I smile and she smiles back
And her children smile and call me auntie.
But in our hands we hold with fists clenched tight
The keys to our homes, each night we slam the bolt shut.
hao yang reads 'archaic torso of apollo' by rainer maria rilke, translated from the german original by stephen mitchell.
Archaic Torso of Apollo
Rainer Maria Rilke
Trans. Stephen Mitchell
We cannot know his legendary head
With eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
Is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
Like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
Gleams in all its power. Otherwise
The curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
A smile run through the placid hips and thighs
To that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
Beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
And would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
Would not, from all the borders of itself,
Burst like a star: for here there is no place
That does not see you. You must change your life.
jovan reads 'the eleventh state' by singaporean poet yong shu hoong.
The Eleventh State
“Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction”—Pablo Picasso
Yong Shu Hoong
To start with this bull
in its most naive form,
wash drawing on stone,
is only natural. Then
the reworking, redrawing,
scrapping with the flat
of the blade, followed by
what’s described as “very
elaborate pen work” —
scrape! scraping, each time
returning to the stone,
simplifying, making flesh dis-
appear, reducing everything
to its simplest state,
where only a few traces
of wash drawing and crayon
remain on the stone,
and the bull, a whole lot
of bull emerges, and more.
Hao Yang shares his thoughts after watching a dramatised reading of Psychobitch by Amanda Chong during The Necessary Stage's Playwrights' Cove 2022. Transcript: https://splooshsg.wixsite.com/sploosh/post/psychobitch
reading my favourite shakespeare sonnet!
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet seasoned show'rs are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starvèd for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
- William Shakespeare
'Each time I see you now,/ I neglect to confess what I've done. I think I'm/ awakening to the fact that it has hardly/ mattered...'
jovan and i read and discuss 'love opened a mortal wound' by sor juana inés de la cruz.
0:57 -- 'Moonface' by Lune Loh
21:00 -- 'Telescope' by Louise Glück
35:15 -- 'depression in early spring' by Erica Jong
59:35 -- 'Love Opened A Mortal Wound' by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Part 2 of the longer episode.
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Part 1 of the longer episode.
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Jovan and I discuss 'The Ballad of Arlene & Nelly' and 'Siren' from Ministry of Moral Panic by Amanda Lee Koe, a Singaporean writer based in the United States of America.
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I read 'A Big Pile Of Bak Chor Mee' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
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I read 'Earthworks' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
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I read 'Seven Thousand' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
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I read 'Richmond Hill' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
Richmond Hill is a city in Ontario, Canada.
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I read 'Mentakab' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
Mentakab is a town in Pahang, Malaysia.
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I read 'Greater Than The Sum' from Tse Hao Guang's 'Deeds of Light'.
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deeds of light (43:37)
ekphrasis / art (46:47)
food republic (51:06)
fav writers (53:50)
how did you begin as a poet? (56:31)
fav poem he's written (58:56)
advice for aspiring writers (1:02:47)
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translation (21:30)
formal poetry in sg (28:20)
'lyrical' and 'confessional' (33:40)
confessionalism (36:42)
deeds of light (38:08)
pasir ris (40:20)
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self-intro (1:20)
the international left-hand calligraphy association (2:20)
deeds v.s. calligraphy (6:05)
free verse (11:37)
formal poetry in sg (14:28)
english v.s. chinese literary tradition (18:50)
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In this episode, Jovan and I chat with local writer and editor Tse Hao Guang about various topics, ranging from his forthcoming collection of poetry (The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association) to confessionalism (again!), from ekphrasis to form in poetry.
Timestamps:
self-intro (1:20)
the international left-hand calligraphy association (2:20)
deeds v.s. calligraphy (6:05)
free verse (11:37)
formal poetry in sg (14:28)
english v.s. chinese literary tradition (18:50)
translation (21:30)
formal poetry in sg (28:20)
'lyrical' and 'confessional' (33:40)
confessionalism (36:42)
deeds of light (38:08)
pasir ris (40:20)
deeds of light (43:37)
ekphrasis / art (46:47)
food republic (51:06)
fav writers (53:50)
how did you begin as a poet? (56:31)
fav poem he's written (58:56)
advice for aspiring writers (1:02:47)
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Ahead My Father Moves' by Boey Kim Cheng.
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Loquats' by Sally Wen Mao.
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Kissing in Vietnamese' by Ocean Vuong.
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3:10 -- Kissing in Vietnamese 16:31 -- Loquats 42:08 -- Ahead my father moves
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I read 'Untitled' by Cyril Wong.
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I read 'Hotel' by Cyril Wong.
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I read 'Cigarette' by Cyril Wong, Singapore's foremost confessional poet.
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topics discussed: literature in NUS, sad/happy writing, images he falls back on, editing process, advice for aspiring singaporean writers, recommended literary events in singapore, if we will get to hear him read poetry again anytime soon, his message to listeners.
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topics discussed: urgency in poetry, national service, queer love and intimacy in singapore, hookup culture, advice for young singaporeans, intellectual and creative writing processes.
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topics discussed: 'this side of heaven', the horror genre, music, meditation, confessionalism, national service.
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In this episode, Jovan and I had the huge honour and privilege to speak with none other than Cyril Wong! For those of you who might be a bit clueless, Cyril is one of Singapore’s most well-known and beloved contemporary poets. He is usually labelled as a confessional poet for his unfiltered engagement with very human themes like sexuality, love, intimacy, alienation but in our conversation, he presents himself as a poet who simply uses personal emotions and experiences as stepping stones to get to things that are more than just flesh and matter, but which are things that truly matter.
Cyril’s writing is highly concerned with the self, yet acutely aware of the insignificance of human existence. He thus manifests the paradoxical nature of the human condition, and attempts to tap into something larger than the self through its confessional mode.
Listen on for discussions about the nature of his writing, love, and as Cyril puts it, an “open door” into his life!
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I read 'Palmistry' by Amanda Chong.
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I read 'Love Letters' by Amanda Chong.
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I read 'Sunny' by Amanda Chong.
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I read 'Lamentations' by Amanda Chong.
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In Part 3 of my conversation with Amanda Chong, we discuss the arts scene in Singapore, Singapore poetry, thoughts on ambition and success, and answer questions from the audience. Questions from the audience include:
-
Given the chance to rewind time, would you still have taken up a government scholarship?
-
How does your work in the government impact your writing?
-
What is your favourite image (in poetry)?
-
Who is your favourite contemporary poet?
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I read 'How is it that we were magnetised?' by Amanda Chong.
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In Part 2 of my conversation with Amanda Chong, we discuss her sources of inspiration, as well as the editing and sequencing processes of Professions.
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In Part 1 of my conversation with Amanda Chong, we discuss playwriting, emotional transparency in poetry, and her time at Hedgebrook.
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In my conversation with Amanda Chong, we discuss topics ranging from the editing process of Professions to her thoughts on achieving success in Singapore. Here are the timestamps:
-
what've you been doing (1:31)
-
differences btwn writing poetry & play (3:00)
-
being personal in poetry (4:37)
-
time at hedgebrook (8:27)
-
what inspires you to write (14:30)
-
editing process (16:16)
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editing of 'professions' (19:35)
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sequencing of 'professions' (22:04)
-
uni years & after (29:44)
-
poetry that resonates w/ singaporeans (33:34)
-
what's missing from sg poetry scene (37:42)
-
advice concerning pressures to succeed (40:15)
-
would you still have taken up a govt scholarship (45:14)
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impact of govt job on writing (46:19)
-
fav image (48:15)
-
fav contemp poet (50:00)
-
next collection (51:00)
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Said the Poet to the Analyst' by Anne Sexton.
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Codicil' by Derek Walcott.
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Jovan and I read and discuss 'Pasir Ris' by Tse Hao Guang.
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In this episode, Jovan and I discuss lyric poetry and read a selection of three poems, namely 'Pasir Ris' (Tse Hao Guang), 'Codicil' (Derek Walcott), and 'Said the Poet to the Analyst' (Anne Sexton).
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transcript: https://cropcirclesinmyfield.blogspot.com/2022/06/transcript-10-minutes-of-poetry-ep-2.html
in this episode, i read three poems by sylvia plath, namely 'morning song', 'tulips', and 'old ladies' home'. send in your thoughts and poetry suggestions. thank you for listening.
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transcript: https://cropcirclesinmyfield.blogspot.com/2022/06/transcript-10-minutes-of-poetry-episode.html
in this episode, i read t.s. eliot's 'the love song of j. alfred prufrock'. let me know your thoughts, whether related to the poem or not, and do send in poems you would like me to read. thank you!
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in this episode, i read amanda chong's 'endings' from her collection 'professions'. i will be reading more poems by singaporean poets in this podcast.
transcript: https://cropcirclesinmyfield.blogspot.com/2022/05/transcript-bowl-of-rose-leaves-ep-3.html
follow me on instagram @tonyitssnowing
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