Goodby Speakeasy & Artistry

Goodbye Artistry and goodbye Speakeasy. It feels like the end of an era as Speakeasy and Artistry finish up in March 2018 at Speakeasy: One Last Dance. A large amount of gratitude to Pooja and Prashant for their courage and vision in running Speakeasy at Artistry over the years. Hopefully, the start of something as wonderful as Speakeasy will happen again soon.

Here are some of the highlights I managed to witness:

Speakeasy #16 George Szirtes & Ng Yi Sheng

Speakeasy #17 Banglar Migrant Worker Poets

Speakeasy #18 Valentine’s Edition 2015

Speakeasy #19 Deborah Emmanuel

Speakeasy #25 Valentine’s Edition 2016

Speakeasy #28 Antoine Cassar & David Wong

Speakeasy #29 Tania De Rozario, Alfian Sa'at & Cyril Wong

Speakeasy #30 Valentine’s Edition 2017

Speakeasy #31 Yong Shu Hoong & Will Beale

All images are copyright Jon Gresham. All rights reserved.

Prior permission is required for approval to use any image - please email me at jongresh [at] yahoo.com. Attribution after written authorisation should be ‘Copyright Jon Gresham. All rights reserved. www.igloomelts.com'.

Speakeasy #19: Deborah Emmanuel

On 29 April 2015 at Artistry, Speakeasy #19 hosted Singaporean writer, musician and actor, Deborah Emmanuel. 

Fresh from Bali - it was almost as though she’d just caught a taxi from the airport after a budget flight from Denpasar, Deborah read poems from her iPhone and new collection, When I Giggle In My Sleep (Red Wheelbarrow Books).

When she read Hey, Mr Pickpocket Man it reminded me how I have never understood the attraction of ’Schoolies week’.

The herd mentality, the myth of slobber and intoxication as grand ‘coming of age’ ritual. Could these really be the best days of our lives? Now we are grown up, and get drunk, and steal, and shag, and throw our bodies all over the place, until we are spent, and fall asleep on the sand with each other’s vomit as a pillow.

Frankly, I’d rather have been sitting on a rock on a hillside, reading Flannery O’Connor and listening to The Waterboys while sneaking a tipple from a stolen Single Malt. That was a long time ago.

Anyway, I enjoyed the energy and wit of her poetry, especially the beauty and thoughtfulness of her sadder work.

Speakeasy #18: The Valentine Edition

Speakeasy #18 was held at a packed Artistry and featured poets, playwrights, DJs, academics, musicians, teachers and booksellers/publishers/institutions reading their favourite love poetry for Valentine’s Day.

The poetry was eclectic, exuberant and celebratory, and included Pablo Neruda, Dorothy Porter, Arthur Yap, Cyril Wong, ee Cummings, Carol Ann Duffy, Leonard Cohen (Alvin Pang knows him and I understand efforts will be made to get him to SWF this year) etc, etc.

There were several romantic moments including Rene & Kenny’s reading and Philip Holden’s rose for his beloved, not to mention a blow job poem and a couple of lyrical cow pieces.

Speakeasy #17 at The Mill

Speakeasy #17 featured poems, music and dancing from the Banglar Kantha Sahitya Parishad (Banglar Kantha Literary Association). The poems were recited in Bengali and Tamil with English translations read out by Singaporean poets Cyril Wong, Tania De Rozario, Alvin Pang, Marc Nair and Jennifer Champion. 

I blogged about these poets before after the Migrant Worker Poetry Competition at the National Library last November. The Dhaka Tribune has an informative article on the Banglar Kantha Literary Association with comments from Alvin Pang providing some context for their poetry in Singapore.

“We share this city together,” Ping [Sic] said. “Why should one set of human voices be less heard and less valued than others? We all need to listen more attentively to each other. This is a late start, but better late than never.”

The evening was held at The Mill as part of the Destruction and Rebirth Festival.

Not being much of a poet, I talked to a few briefly about cricket and how Bangladesh would fare in the upcoming World Cup. 

Please let me know any names of the poets whose names I didn't catch so I can ensure the captions are correct.

Speakeasy #16 at Artistry

Speakeasy #16 at Artistry featured two very different, excellent, inspiring poets, George Szirtes and Ng Yi Sheng.

Apart from being a TS Eliot prize winning poet, George, is a Manchester Utd supporter. He also delivered a wonderful response to Jeremy Paxman's statement that poetry should aim to 'engage with ordinary people much more'.

I really enjoyed listening and engaging with his poem, Madhouse.

George has written a fine summary of the evening - full of warm and open insights - here on his blog. 

Ng Yi Sheng is one of the leading poets in Singapore and won the Singapore Literature Prize for Last Boy in 2006. 

His mother was in the audience and I bought her a pot of camomile tea. Yi Sheng tore off his T Shirt and performed 'A Loud Poem to be Read to a Very Obliging Audience', which climaxed in a crescendo of energy and action, and then levelled off to end in self destruction. Afterwards I poured his mother another cup of tea.

Yi Sheng has an illuminating tumblr East is Everywhere which explores the mix and mingling of 'Asian' cultures.

Speakeasy returns to Artistry Cafe next year.