Judges for Poetry

Yeow Kai Chai (Chief Judge)

Yeow Kai Chai is a poet, prose writer, editor, and former journalist. He has been working in the media for more than two decades as a writer, editor, and reviewer. He has two poetry collections, Secret Manta and Pretend I’m Not Here. He was Festival Director of Singapore Writers Festival from 2015 to 2018.

Cathy Song

Cathy Song’s award-winning books include Picture Bride, Frameless Windows, Squares of Light, and Cloud Moving Hands. Featured in The Norton Anthologies of Modern Poetry and American Literature, Cathy is the recipient of The Shelley Memorial Award, The Frederick Bock Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and the Hawai’i Award for Literature.

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is a poet and essayist whose work explores the intersection of text and image,  cultural memory and identity. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the inaugural Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize 2019 for The Experiment of the Tropics, which eventually was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. He has also received the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, among others.