poetry.sg is an educational / critical resource on all things Singaporean poetry, conceptualised and managed by a dedicated team of staffers and volunteers at Sing Lit Station. Launched in 2015 with support from the National Arts Council, poetry.sg is an online database of local poets that comes with an accompanying catalogue of biographies, samples of selected poetry, video recordings and critical essays written by academics and other local writers alike.
After debuting the profiles of Damien Sin (1965–2011) and Mervin Mirapuri (1945–2020) with the help of poet-academics Ann Ang and Gwee Li Sui respectively, we’re proud to publish Critical Editor Leonard Yip’s extensive essay on how Singaporean poets have written about the island’s edgelands. “In doing so,” he writes, “I uncover the twin languages of grief and hope by which to read these complicated, mixed landscapes.”
Ouija boards be damned. Necromancy — kaput. Seances? Virtually unnecessary. Our latest poetry.sg feature assembles ten pairs of poets, speaking to one another across the generations, in an effort to memorialise and revitalise Singapore’s rich literary canon.
From Daryl Lim Wei Jie’s critical introduction to Wong Phui Nam: “The questions and fears of Wong Phui Nam’s wilderness have perhaps never left us. We may think we have left it behind, but the reality is that we live in it nonetheless.”
From Faris Alfiq’s critical introduction to Mohamed Latiff Mohamed: “Mohamed Latiff Mohamed’s poems are a sobering reflection on the conditions of modern society and the ordinary people that live in it. He succinctly captured the social imagination and memory of Singaporeans …”
Browse our multimedia content on our YouTube channel.
