Song of a Reformed Headhunter

  My name is on the book cover, but the book is in fact written by many hands. My grateful thanks to the many Singaporeans in America who shared their stories with me and gave me permission to write them up in verse. Here it is, a book about us: SAMPLE AND LOOP: A SIMPLE HISTORY OF SINGAPOREANS IN AMERICA. "Based on personal interviews, these poems together tell a part of the story of the migration of Singaporeans to the United States of America. Sample and Loop traces the nonlinear, multidimensional, and surprising trajectory of lived experience in musical verse. Here are the Ceramicist, the Pediatrician, the Scenic Designer, the Chef, the Porn Star, and a host of other migrant-pilgrims sharing the tales of their lives even as they continue to make those lives in a country not of their birth. By narrating their discoveries, troubles, hopes, and sorrows, they refract a powerful beam of light on both countries and compose a wayward music for the road." All sale proceeds go t...

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Thank you for buying books from our imprint Gaudy Boy in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Gaudy Boy donated our sales proceeds from June through August to Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL-NY). Together we raised $500, including two outright donations. Led by Black and brown people, VOCAL-NY is a statewide grassroots membership organization that builds power among low-income people directly impacted by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness. The organization has active chapters in New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Westchester County. We're pleased to support its community organizing, leadership development, advocacy, direct services, and direct action. Do check out VOCAL-NY's tremendous work for disadvantaged communities. I don't do this often but I will toot my own horn. My first hybrid work of fiction Snow at 5 PM:...

We're very excited to launch the new Singapore Unbound website . It brings together into one place all our initiatives and activities: Singapore Literature Festival in NYC, Second Saturdays Reading Series, Singapore Poetry blog, Singapore Unbound Fellowship, and our new imprint, Gaudy Boy, which publishes authors of Asian heritage. Please support us by signing up on the website for the e-newsletter, following us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and spreading the word. We are a completely independent non-profit venture seeking to build cultural exchange and mutual understanding between Singapore and the USA. Champion the cause of literature, the arts, and equal rights by making a donation.

This Middle Ground article provides a useful summary of events and views about censorship and arts funding in Singapore, for those coming into the discussion mid-way. From the discussion so far, I've read stated either directly or indirectly that I could stop asking NAC for funding because I am already an "established" artist, whatever that means. The implication is that less established artists cannot afford to stop asking NAC for funding. I just want to point out (at the risk of sounding as if I'm tooting my horn) that I did not apply for NAC funding even when I was trying to establish myself. I quit as VP of a secondary school in Singapore to move to New York City to study creative writing. I was rejected by four different graduate programs before I was accepted by one that did not offer any financial aid or teaching assistantship. I spent all my savings on the program before I received a financial gift in my second year from the college for my work. After gra...

Guy and I put together this folio of photos and haiku in December. The photographs were taken during our visit to Japan last August. The haiku were inspired by the trip too. The folio will be available at the Rainbow Book Fair in NYC in April, and at the Brooklyn Book Fest in September. Kin Poetry Journal published six of my haiku . Thanks, Eric Norris, for inviting me to submit.

After a long night of rain, Sunday turned out to be gorgeous. Again, I shared a table with RH of Poets Wear Prada Press. I decided to sell CW's and JI's Math Paper Press books, as well as my own. GH helped me design a sign, Singapore Poetry, which I taped to the top of the stand, and in front of the table. Singapore Poetry was certainly a draw. People who have lived in Singapore, have visited Singapore, or have a cousin who have been to Singapore came over to talk. Singaporeans came bounding to the table, surprised and pleased to find Singapore Poetry at the Brooklyn Book Festival. A nunber of Asians checked out the books too. And a Brooklyn bookseller who really liked the design of the Math Paper Press books. I sold three times the number of books sold last year. It was a good idea to sell the books at a generously discounted price. Many other tables were doing so as well, including the university press at the next table. People liked a special offer. Having collected...

Roxanne was kind enough to invite me to share the table with her press, Poets Wear Prada. Somewhat to my surprise, I managed to sell seven books. 1. A woman quite soon after the start of the festival at 10 AM bought a copy of Seven Studies for her son, an English teacher who loves poetry. 2. Not too long after, another woman dipped into both of my books and bought Equal to the Earth on my recommendation that she get to know my work from the beginning. This sale is especially meaningful to me, for she liked enough what she read to pay for the risk of reading more of a stranger's work. 3. I sold another copy of Equal to a high-school junior who wants to write, and who loves T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg and Cavafy. 4. A woman was thrilled to find Frida Kahlo and Egon Schiele in Seven Studies and bought a copy. 5. A colleague from school bought a copy of Equal . 6. An older gentleman liked what he read of Bob Hart's Lightly in the Good of Day , and bought a copy. 7....

Bench Press celebrates its second anniversary! I am giving away three free books on Facebook .

It is nearly here, the conclusion (of a sort) to the process of editing and publishing Bob's book Lightly in the Good of Day . The book will be launched on September 17 Friday, 6 PM, at Cornelia Street Cafe , during the Son of the Pony open-mic. Kathi Georges and I have agreed on a format for the reading. Jane Ormerod, Adriana Scorpino, R. Nemo Hill and Thomas Fucaloro will read first, as the last four readers of the open-mic. Then Bruce Weber and his band The No Chance Ensemble will open Bob Hart's feature with their rendition of two of his poems. Bob will be the final reader, as he must be of his own work. It should be a good reading.

I set up a Facebook Page for Bench Press this morning. If you have a Facebook account, you can be a Fan of the press by clicking here .  JS tipped me off about Rainbow Reviews . A review site for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered books, it publishes new reviews every Sunday. Guidelines for author submission can be found on the website. It also has a separate authors promotion blog.

Bench Press: poetry that exerts pressure at every point, and so achieves a momentary rest Bench Press, an independent publisher of poetry, will be launched on July 4, 2009. On that day its website will go "live," and unveil its logo. The press is pleased to announce its first title: Jee Leong Koh's Equal to the Earth. Of Koh's book, Vijay Seshadri writes: "Jee Leong Koh is a vigorous, physical poet very much captured by the expressive power of rhythm, rhetoric, and the lexicon. He is also, paradoxically, a poet in pursuit of the most elusive and delicate human emotions. The contradiction is wonderful and compelling, and so are the poems." You can read and hear a poem from the book on the press website , and purchase a copy of the book.  Thank you.