Song of a Reformed Headhunter

So pleased that my new book of poems CONNOR AND SEAL will be published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2020. Thank you, Bryan Borland and Seth Pennington, for believing in the work. My publishing journey has been one of twists and turns. My very first book PAYDAY LOANS was published by Roxanne Hoffman's Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in New Jersey. Encouraged by the late John Stahle, my second book EQUAL TO THE EARTH and third book SEVEN STUDIES FOR A SELF PORTRAIT were self-published in New York under the imprint of Bench Press. My fourth book THE PILLOW BOOK was picked up by Singaporean indie publisher Kenny Leck and his Math Paper Press. STEEP TEA, my fifth book, was released by Michael Schmidt's Carcanet Press in the UK. I'm glad that my new book has found a home in the USA. It's the most American and queerest of my books. It owes its inspiration to Rita Dove's THOMAS AND BEULAH and its life to my life with Guy Humphrey in Harlem. Based in Little Rock, Ar...

By closely examining five well-chosen case studies—the 1966 Vandalism Act, the 1974 Press Act, the 1986 Legal Profession (Amendment) Act, the 1991 Religious Harmony Act, and the 2009 Public Order Act—through the lens of critical discourse analysis, Jothie Rajah's Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore shows how the Singapore state governs through the illiberal "rule by law" while claiming to do so through the liberal "rule of law." By legislating illiberal laws and dominating public discourse, the state has successfully silenced or co-opted, in turn, its early electoral opponents, the local press, the legal profession, the Catholic Church and other religious organizations, and local civil society--the major sources of non-state authority and mobilization. How then, Rajah asks, does the Singapore state construct and maintain its legitimacy despite such illiberal moves? The answer, implicit throughout the book, is articul...