Qualities of Care
Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.
This is how Wikipedia introduces Mr. Chia Thye Poh: "Detained under the Internal Security Act of Singapore for allegedly conducting pro-communist activities against the government, he was imprisoned for 23 years without charge or trial and subsequently placed under conditions of house arrest for another nine years – in which he was first confined to the island of Sentosa and then subject to restrictions on his place of abode, employment, travel, and exercise of political rights." Appropriately for an encyclopedia, the language is objective and careful.
Poetry can be care-full in another sense, by being an empathetic companion to the victims of political injustice, to walk with those who have been unfairly treated. Alfian Sa'at's poems about Mr. Chia Thye Poh, just published in the Evergreen Review, are some of the best political poems I know. In a drily laconic but deeply compassionate style reminiscent of the writing of the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, Alfian puts himself and us in the feet, not just the shoes, of Mr. Chia so that we feel not only the weight of injustice but also the triumph of the human spirit. After reading these poems, you will want to get the book A History of Amnesia. Thank you, Alfian, for remembering and writing. Thank you, Ethos Books, for publishing courageously. And thank you, Seelan Palay and Elizabeth Duffy, for the luminous artwork.
Jee Leong Koh
January 16, 2020
If you missed our Year-End Appeal, it's still not too late to give to Singapore Unbound in support of all that we do for literature and human rights.
This is how Wikipedia introduces Mr. Chia Thye Poh: "Detained under the Internal Security Act of Singapore for allegedly conducting pro-communist activities against the government, he was imprisoned for 23 years without charge or trial and subsequently placed under conditions of house arrest for another nine years – in which he was first confined to the island of Sentosa and then subject to restrictions on his place of abode, employment, travel, and exercise of political rights." Appropriately for an encyclopedia, the language is objective and careful.
Poetry can be care-full in another sense, by being an empathetic companion to the victims of political injustice, to walk with those who have been unfairly treated. Alfian Sa'at's poems about Mr. Chia Thye Poh, just published in the Evergreen Review, are some of the best political poems I know. In a drily laconic but deeply compassionate style reminiscent of the writing of the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, Alfian puts himself and us in the feet, not just the shoes, of Mr. Chia so that we feel not only the weight of injustice but also the triumph of the human spirit. After reading these poems, you will want to get the book A History of Amnesia. Thank you, Alfian, for remembering and writing. Thank you, Ethos Books, for publishing courageously. And thank you, Seelan Palay and Elizabeth Duffy, for the luminous artwork.
... In Mr. Chia’s diary
There are only records that reveal
What he had for breakfast
On which day he left the door ajar
The type of gravel on his shoes
But none written in his hand.
If Mr. Chia were younger
He would have asked
“What kind of man
Could bring himself
To write all this?
But now he only asks
“What kind of man
Could they have been
Writing about?”
[From "Mr. Chia's Diary" by Alfian Sa'at]
Jee Leong Koh
January 16, 2020
If you missed our Year-End Appeal, it's still not too late to give to Singapore Unbound in support of all that we do for literature and human rights.
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