SingPoWriMo 2017 Closing Party

SingPoWriMo 2017 closing party at Sing Lit Station.

The roti prata was very nice. The poetry even nicer. Well done to all the winners. 'Bread talks, but the kopi tiam.'

Don't forget to support the SIngPoWriMo 2017 Anthology at Indiegogo

This year's anthology will be edited by Ruth Tang, Stephanie Dogfoot and Daryl Qilin Yam.

Sing Lit Station

Sing Lit Station is live!

We held a meeting last night gathered around a 24-inch computer screen working our way through the Sing Lit Station draft accounting and financial framework, Petty Cash process, SingPoWriMo T shirt inventory and myriad tasks, activities and projects all organised in colour-coded glory, all one click away within the cloud based workflow software.

B&W photos are above, and colour photos here, starring Ruth Tang, Daryl Qilin Yam, Tse Hao Guang and Joshua Ip.

Meanwhile submit to the Manuscript Boot Camp 2016: Prose from now until 15 September 2016.

SingPoWriMo 2016

On 30 April, SingPoWriMo 2016 held its Closing Party at BooksActually.

Apparently there were free ice cream sandwiches. I didn't manage to get any (maybe that was by design) but I did manage to find a kind person who gave me a cigarette (thanks Jocelyn).

Joshua Ip has a list of things to do next - including contributing to journals and supporting the 2016 Anthology with a donation.

The index of prolific, posting poets, partcipating is here. This year's 'surprise find' was Poetry on the MRT - coming to a carriage near you very soon.

There is even an ST podcast on SingPoWriMo and poetry with Joshua Ip, Alvin Pang & Deborah Emmanuel.

Images from prior years SingPoWriMos can be found here.

So what's next for SingPoWriMo? 

Perhaps next year's SingPoWriMo could go regional and become AseanPoWriMo??
 

A Luxury We Cannot Afford & SingPoWriMo

Last Sunday, two impressive poetry anthologies, A Luxury We Cannot Afford (edited by Christine Chia & Joshua Ip) and SingPoWriMo: The Anthology (edited by Ann Ang, Pooja Nansi & Joshua Ip) were launched by Math Paper Press at the Arts House.

In 1969 ‘he who cannot be named’ declared: “Poetry is a luxury we cannot afford.”

ALWCA is a poetic response to the myths and narratives that loom large around ‘he who cannot be named’. It is part homage, critique, analysis, rant, fiction, representation, exploration, examination and antidote to The Man.

Despite my poetic disabilities, I have a small prose poem on page 96 of ALWCA.

As a predominantly prose writer I am a lurker on SingPoWriMo but I do enjoy the energy and enthusiasm, challenge and chutzpah of this grassroots movement. Who knew poetry was so popular in Singapore?

During the Q&A the question was asked, I think by Robert Yeo, why the resurgent interest in poetry in Singapore amongst so many teenagers/young people? What is to account for it?

Several points were made by Joshua Ip & Robert Yeo & others:

• Poetry suits youth: Young people need to express and explore their identity and feelings, to talk about how they feel and see the world. Young people like to be provocative. Poetry is the best vehicle to articulate & explore meaning because it's versatile, subjective and covers a 'broad church'. You have a lot of free time for poetry when you’re young that is no longer available when you're older.
  
  Poetry is a bit like punk. Except you don't need musical instruments. 
   
• Poetry is easy to write: Did someone actually say “easy”? "Easy" compared to what? I guess, compared to prose, a poem may be 'immediate', 'convenient', 'short'. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen, and it takes less time than writing a novel or a short story or a play.
   
• Poetry suits Singapore: Poetry can be oblique and ambiguous. In a highly regulated, hierarchical, sensitive, authoritarian society, Singaporeans appreciate the indirectness of poetry. Did someone say poetry is 'sneaky' ... Or did I mishear? Haha.
   
• Poetry suits modern technology: The structure of Facebook was ideally suited for sharing & commenting on SingPoWriMo's daily challenges. Social media helped level the playing field so the text (nearly) always remained the focus. Immediacy worked. ‘Likes’ were encouraging. Nobody was really nasty or personal in their critique - the text was the focus.

The corollary of the question is: does poetry fade out of life as the years go by? Probably. To some extent as you grow older priorities change, your focus turns to security rather than exploration, you grow commitments & you have less time and energy for poetry due to your obligations to job, spouse/partner, offspring, aging parents, mortgage etc, etc. Consumerism, class, status, money & growing old kill poetry - if you let them. Prose writers experience this too. Sigh.

A review of SingPoWriMo can found here.