Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Not the rain but after no false note

New day old shoes the leaves are turning

A black moth climbing up a white wall: a bad stutter

His tank top is the same hot pink as his dog's collar

The long summer has led the bee astray... the cherries will bloom again in memory of Jin Hirata

The sadness of scraggy fields where we sat

Proud to have my poem "A Whole History" (from Steep Tea ) included in the groundbreaking anthology Bettering American Poetry 2015 . From my interview : "I knew people back home would be pleased and proud that a Singaporean was being published by the esteemed UK publisher Carcanet Press. I wanted people to know, even if they don’t open the book, that this Singaporean is proudly gay. The anti-sodomy law, an inheritance from the British, is still on the books, and the LGBT community in Singapore still faces all kinds of discrimination and prejudice. If the country wishes to embrace my book, it will have to embrace my sexuality. I also self-identify as postcolonial for political reasons. Not only do I wish to assert my independence against the British empire of letters, I also want to protest the neo-colonial apparatuses of oppression inherited and exercised by the Singaporean state. These apparatuses include not only the anti-sodomy law, but also state control of the pre...

Under the sky and its September glint an empty pedestal

"In His Other House" and "Singapore Buses Are Very Reliable" have been translated into Russian by Dmitry Kuzmin. I feel very honored. * What's holding up the clouds in the treeless sky?