Community
/ Poetry Note by Dr Jenny Mak
COMMUNITY: A body of people or things viewed collectively.
I 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’. This is especially since, while we often think of poetry writing as an individual and private endeavour, we are also always creating within a greater collective. Like the orchestral whales composing their ocean canto in Elizabeth L. Fong’s “Hymn” or the chorus of poets speaking in Rodrigo Dela Peña Jr. 's “Origin Story”, poetry making is community making. Camaraderie, joyfulness, unity — these are the qualities through which SingPoWriMo was originally born. These are also the qualities that I was hoping some of the submissions would reflect.
However, if I were to describe the sculpture that seemed to be collectively forming out of SingPoWriMo ‘clay’ early on, I’d have said - weary, grimy, and tortured. Maybe they are expressions of the pandemic times we’re still in, which Kemlyn Tan Bappe’s “I Don’t Have A Compass” and Nicole Ann Law’s “Times Like These” acknowledge. Maybe they show sober recognition of the ever-present limitations of Singaporean governance, as voiced by Low Kian Seh’s “Ballad of the Ballot”. Maybe they involve reportage of real-life tragedies (Jonathan Chan’s “Explosion”), cathartic release of taboo emotions (Jana Quahe Rae’s “Reflecting”), or quiet confession of one’s less savoury qualities (Don Shiau’s “Unpopular Opinion”). Whatever the reason, I wasn’t getting camaraderie and joy. Have we become cynical? Was the cause all but lost?
A thought: Maybe I need to drop my own preconceptions of what “community” means and see the actual poetic forms that are emerging, commune with them. So I sit with the submissions again.
Camaraderie, joyfulness, and unity slowly start revealing themselves in the midst of the gloom. Through the sharing of chicken meat in Gan See Siong’s “Safe School Environment” and pizza in Nicholas Quek’s “You Know It’s Real”. Through glimpses of the changing twilight (Amanda Yeo’s “These Blues”) or the jungle roar of the rocks (Catherine Joan Devadason’s “The Lion Remembers the Mouse”). Through lunar cycles (Sarah Mak’s “Moons”) and life cycles (Sophia Huang’s “Life”, Ally Chua’s “Clean Living”, Elizabeth Fen Chen’s “The Things I Could Tell You About Tamagotchi Would Fit A Very Small Book”). They echo through the throbbing walkways of Bishan’s Junction 8 mall (Wong Yang and Kimberly Chia’s “What is Bishan, if not J8 Persevering?”). They are stirred into a ban mian-like sunset (Ryan Yeo’s “On A Walk With You”). They are recorded through the complex techne of body and word (Lune Loh’s “The Prophecy”, Janice Heng’s “N-Body Problem”). They are signed in Jolene Cheong’s “I learnt to sign when my voice wasn’t enough”, sealed in the social contract of Karen Oh’s “Chope”, and delivered pixelated in Felix Deng’s “Telegram”.
Joyful poetry is there in the communal SingPoWriMo clay, diverse in colour, texture, and form. Even though we live in challenging times, our local poets remain hopeful and resourceful. Poetry still gets written as in Benzie Dio’s “An Other Another” - line by line, word by word, and through the cracks like kintsugi.
I hope that in this issue, you find a joyful community of poets and joyful poetry in community. I certainly have.