Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Eshuneutics is writing a seven-part review of Seven Studies for a Self Portrait , and has posted Parts 1 to 3 so far . Part 1 examines the significance of the collection as a book of gay poetry. Its emphasis on my attempt to "give style" to disparate experiences is completely accurate. Part 2 is a more philosophical meditation on the spiritual ethos of the book. Part 3 reads the opening title sequence closely for its poetic strategy and music. The on-going review looks set to complement Nicholas Liu's QLRS review very nicely.

I think Nick has written an excellent review , not merely because he admires my book, and therefore shows good taste, but because he displays the informed and critical sympathy that a reviewer should have. Koh Jee Leong's fine, if uneven, first book ( Equal to the Earth , 2009) demonstrated at once his capacity for restraint and his willingness to sacrifice good taste in the service of a larger aesthetic aim. Sensibility and spirit have now crystallised into a mission, and Koh doesn't care who knows it. Or rather, he cares very much indeed. Not since kensai's ill-fated Maiden (2002) has a collection of Singapore poetry in English wanted to matter as much as does Seven Studies for a Self Portrait . Beginning with its summative, triply-alliterative title and its somewhat over-literal cover (seven photographs of the poet!), the book advertises its project loudly, erects its own museum placard. To top it off, Koh selects an opening quotation from Nietszche's Thus Spoke Z...

On June 15 met Nick Liu and Jen Crawford at NTU's School of Humanities and Social Sciences theatrette to be video-recorded for SPARK, a soon-to-be-launched online poetry archive. It is the hope that the archive will be to Singapore poetry what Poets.org, for instance, is to the Americans. Following the format of the series, I read a poem that has influenced me, in my case, Boey Kim Cheng's "Day of No Name," talked about it, and then read a poem of mine that is related to the first. I chose to read "In His Other House." Not only does it refer to Boey's book Days of No Name , but it expresses a vision of an alternative Singapore that is implicit in Boey's writing. The poem is also further and happily linked to Boey as it has been published in Mascara , edited by Boey and Michelle Cahill. I think I said clearly what I found helpful in Boey's poem, but afterwards I wished I had said something more about the usefulness of living away from Singapor...