Here is where we leave everything on the table — everything we need to say before we go.
Picture this: Two editors turned buddies, sitting on barstools, nursing the last traces of our margaritas and two years worth of memories. Semisonic’s “Closing Time” comes through the speakers and we huddle closer to murmur thank yous and goodbyes.
Read MoreI often think of poets as sculptors, making interesting shapes out of raw clay. Through a mix of intellect and instinct, their poems can manifest in a medley of forms - whether it is a poem with such precise metric verse as to resemble a perfectly symmetrical bowl, or a poem written with such abandon like a Zaha Hadid installation. As poetry editor of this issue, I was excited to see what kinds of poetic sculpture would come out of the thirty days of SingPoWriMo frenzy that happens each April, particularly in relation to the theme of ‘Community’.
Read MoreAh yes, here we are, the political issue.
The illustrious repertoire of a literary outfit is never truly complete without an edition that wrangles with the reasons why we write what we write.
Read MoreWhen I was asked to curate this issue of SingPoWriMo, there was a furore over Elizabeth Haigh’s “Singaporean” cookbook Makan, and how it had plagiarised not just recipes, but personal memories, from an earlier cookbook, Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen, by the Singaporean author Sharon Wee.
Read MoreWhen you are on the highest floor of a building, and you look out at your view, there is a recognition; the elevator you were just on cannot take you any higher. You have reached the limit available to you and you would need something else, something new, if you wanted to climb to new heights. This level is both ceiling and floor.
Read MoreWatching summer leaves brown to autumn shades, I sift through this year's poetry submissions, pleasantly surprised by the many prompts that allowed for earlier works to be reimagined. Many poets took the challenge to relook poems written in mother tongue languages to be translated or rather transcreated into English poems.
Read MoreThere is an act of revisiting that takes place at the midpoint of a poet’s journey. Be it mid-career or mid-poem, there is a brief moment of circling back to the peaks and valleys, themes explored and unquestioned, verses written and abandoned. We look to the past to see how far we’ve come. We pay homage to what was in order to pace forward.
Read MoreOne of the cornerstones of SingPoWriMo is that such a gathering would offer otherwise unacknowledged writers, writers who are unknown, writers who have yet to have their presence felt in the poet-o-sphere (if there was such a thing), writers who have not published… Well, this issue is dedicated to you, that writer.
Read MoreMeliza: Hi, Cheyenne.
Cheyenne: Hi, Meliza.
Meliza: Merry Christmas.
Cheyenne: Merry Early Christmas.
Read MoreOne of the most defining, and also the most exciting things about SingPoWriMo, is its refusal to answer the question ‘What is a poem’ by any conventional standard or easily reducible axiom.
Read MoreThis year’s editors, Melizarani and Cheyenne (otherwise M’n’C a.k.a multinational corporation) not only personify the coincidental acronym but also have not had in-person meetings since they took on the roles, with Melizarani being ‘stuck’ in Malaysia while Cheyenne works from home in Singapore.
This is their story.
Read MoreApril — during which SPWM takes place every year — was the month when the full effects of the Circuit Breaker, along with a whole swath of other lifestyle changes, were being felt across not just Singapore but the world as well.
So it isn’t surprising that SPWM became a chronicle of the Covid-19 experience.
Read MoreWe are now proud to present the final issue, “We Are Mythic”, where we explore, through SPWM poems and our features, the myths we tell, that we love, that we hate, that we believe in despite our better judgement, or that we don’t, despite our desire to. Myths have long been used to explain phenomena mere human logic could not and have inspired traditions or entire bodies of cultural practices that have persisted to this day.
Read MoreAs you reach your block, the rain begins to subside like the bastard it has been all week. There goes your secret desire to take a hot shower while the tropical rain rages outside.
Read MoreOn the 22nd of January earlier this year, a rather peculiar Facebook Messenger group was created by the good people behind Sing Lit Station, the driving force behind the annual Singapore Poetry Writing Month (also known as SingPoWriMo, SPWM, spwm, April is the cruelest month, etc, etc).
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