By Jolene Lee
Diploma in Creative Writing for TV and New Media
Singapore Polytechnic
Winning the prestigious Singapore Literature Prize in 2008 for his first collection Last Boy was a dream debut for Ng Yi-Sheng, but he also had to contend with the criticism that came hand in hand with the honour.
Yi-Sheng reveals he was confronted in a bookstore by someone who felt he did not deserve the award. The man told Yi-Sheng he should be ashamed of himself for winning.
But the 38-year-old poet and playwright believes the prize did go to the right person.
“You can give it to the person who is the best or the person who needs it the most,” he states.
He thinks it is the latter in his case and is grateful for the opportunity to showcase his work.
And he is also unfazed by the bookstore encounter. He says he continues to write the way he wants to and has learnt to trust his instincts more, knowing that “your work is not going to be for everyone”.
Testing the boundaries
Yi-Sheng’s daring and unique writing style has found expression in plays, fiction and his signature poems.
Many of the full-time writer’s works involve Singapore’s LGBT+ scene, like Last Boy, A Book of Hims and SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century. He says he wants to write about LGBT+ issues even though they’re still considered a touchy topic in Asia.
Yi-Sheng also admits to being thrilled writing about “topics that are a little bit taboo”. He feels that it’s fun to test the boundaries because they may be more flexible than people would expect.
In his new work, Lion City: A Collection of Short Stories, Yi-Sheng uses metaphors that people associate with Singapore to explain how fascinating the country is. His goal was to write about local history in a fresh yet realistic way so people can have a different view of the country. Otherwise, he says, "what's the point of me being here?”
by Tan Swee Yin
Diploma in Creative Writing for Television and New Media
Singapore Polytechnic
Egyptians insist author Melissa De Silva is one of them; in Thailand she is mistaken for a local; and Indians are confused – is she the same race as them?
The writer, 40, recently published a book to offer a small insight into the lives of Eurasians like her. The book, titled ‘Others’ Is Not A Race, is a collection of oral histories and short stories about her own experiences as a Eurasian in Singapore, and was awarded the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize for Creative Non-fiction.
It’s an issue that’s close to her heart, and in 2014, she started a blog called Eurasians in Singapore. There, she started sharing her stories, with short posts of her experiences growing up in Singapore. To her surprise, her blog was well received, with many people expressing their interest to know more about the lifestyle and culture of the Eurasians. Besides the blog, Melissa also occasionally sent in stories that were published in literary journals, but their reach was limited.
“Relatively few people read journals. So, I thought, how can more people access these stories?” she says.
It was with this question in mind that she came up with the idea to compile these stories in a collection. The manuscript was submitted to Math Paper Press and would eventually become ‘Others’ Is Not A Race. The experience of the writing process was “very fulfilling” and she says she is “very grateful for it”.
“I’ve had the opportunity to speak about Eurasian culture and history to groups of people. These opportunities would not have existed without the book, so more people have come to know a little more about Eurasians because of this book,” she says.
The unseen homegrown literature
Melissa is concerned about the way literature by Singapore authors is shelved in libraries and some bookstores. In public libraries, works by Singaporean writers are placed in a shelf for ‘local’ literature, separate from other books published internationally.
“Many times, we discover books by accident while browsing library shelves,” she remarks, “so that whole opportunity to discover and chance upon a work by a Singaporean author is gone if, like most people, we just browse the general fiction section in the library. Most people don't browse the Singapore collection.” She believes that such a system of categorisation also reinforces the idea that Singaporean literature is “not on par” with international books as the word ‘local’ often brings about negative connotations that “equate to inferior”.
She points out that in countries like the US or the UK, books by local authors are not labelled ‘local’ fiction.
“I think more thought needs to go into even the words that are used to represent us as Singaporean writers or Singapore itself.”
However, Melissa, who has an upcoming historical novel in the works, is optimistic about the future of the writing scene in Singapore.
She is an Education Ambassador for the online platform Write The World, which guides teenagers to become better writers.
“They’re so passionate about writing and so dedicated. They’re really talented and are just a wonderful bunch of young people, so I’m full of hope.”
By Syadiyah Adlina Binte Suhaimi
Diploma in Creative Writing for TV and New Media
Singapore Polytechnic
Singaporean author and Literature teacher doesn’t believe AI can replace human poets (Photo credit: Syadiyah Adlina Binte Suhaimi)
Netflix killed the DVD and video rental industry. Dropbox and Google Drive are making a dent in data recovery services. The bar soap, diamond, and napkin industries were taken down by the millennial generation. Both technology and millennials have one thing in common: they are the future.
But what links them to 33-year-old Loh Guan Liang, the winner of the 2011
Moving Words Poetry Competition? Well, as a Literature teacher and a poet he has the unique perspective of contemplating the two things shaping tomorrow’s writing.
Technology Overtaking Human Poetry?
Ours is an uncertain world where computers and Artificial Intelligence are replacing humans in many fields. But Guan Liang is unconcerned about poetry-writing robots.
“They can create something, but whether it has soul in it remains to be seen,” he says.
He examines a computer-generated poem handed to him. It was accepted for the Duke Literary Journal by an editor who didn’t realise it was auto-generated. Guan Liang acknowledges that it does look like a poem written by a human. However, on closer inspection he finds that the images don’t add up to anything meaningful.
He reads another shorter poem, also generated by a computer. He admits it is better than the first, but attributes it to the structure of the poem which is quite repetitive and “able to mask the machine-ness of the poem”.
He goes on to say that poetry is abstract and plays with language the way conventional writing doesn’t, which computers might not be able to pick up on.
“If you think of machine writing as going by a set of rules, poetry resists those rules, which is why it won’t work,” he concludes.
Future Writers
He isn’t worried about what lies ahead for the literary scene in Singapore either. As a Literature teacher since 2010, Guan Liang says he is seeing more students who are writing, thanks to social media sites like Instagram and Twitter. He reiterates that students have been writing since back in his day, often scribbling in notebooks for themselves. The difference now is “with social media what they write becomes more obvious”.
Social media is also becoming increasingly visual. Text gets paired with images, which influences the fundamental nature of writing, he says.
“More thoughts come not just into writing but also the packaging of the product because you’re presenting it for people to see and you want people to like it, re-tweet it and share it.”
And Guan Liang believes the future is in safe hands.
“Just because you’re writing for other people, it doesn’t make it less authentic, because ultimately it still comes from you.”
Guan Liang, whose last poetry collection Bitter Punch was published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize, is now trying his hand at writing prose. He plans to work on prose before he embarks on a third poetry collection, which he says will stray from his first two. His earlier collections, Transparent Strangers and Bitter Punch, centre around the loneliness in the city.
“For the third one, I’m not going to rush it. When it comes, it comes.”
