"The New Poetry of Singapore" by Gwee Li Sui
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 ...