Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Three sonnets from "Ungovernable Bodies" have just gone live on the beautifully curated website The Abandoned Playground . The first two sonnets are written "after Yeow Kai Chai," whose work is always a challenge and an inspiration. Thanks, Daniele Pantano, for publishing them. It's a real honor to be included in your marvelous selection of writings and art. Everyone should check out the website.

The essay appears in Volume II of Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary Singaporean-Malaysia Literature , itself a part of the series Writing Asia: The Literatures in Englishes . In the essay, instead of rehashing the tired discourse of nationalism in the poetry of earlier Singaporean poets, Gwee focuses on younger poets who published their first books in 1997 and later. Relatively free from the control of both State and University, these poets put out, with the help of independent publishers, a series of works that have re-energized Singaporean writing. A chronology: 1997 - Alvin Pang's Testing the Silence , Aaron Lee's A Visitation of Sunlight , and Yong Shu Hoong's Isaac . 1998 - Grace Chia's Womango , Alfian Sa'at's One Fierce Hour , Felix Cheong's Temptation and Other Poems , Damien Sin's Saints, Sinners and Singaporeans and Gwee's Who Wants to Buy a Book of Poems? 1999 - Felix Cheong's I Watch the Stars Go Out , Daren Shiau's ...

The October issue of Softblow , the journal edited by Cyril Wong, features four Singaporean poets: Yeow Kai Chai, Pooja Nansi, Zhuang Yisa and me. I am represented by "Cheeks," "Roof of the Mouth, Jaws and Jaw-Hinges," "The Wine Bottle Holder," and "Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background." On Cha's blog, a reader posts a nice comment on my poems in Softblow .