New Singapore Poetries
Edited by Marylyn Tan and Jee Leong Koh
Gaudy Boy: 2022
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What makes New Singapore Poetries new? In terms of previous Singapore poetry: no direct references to the country’s tourist mascot, the half-fish, half-lion Merlion; no fetishising of Southeast Asian fruit, food or nostalgia solely as a marker of cultural identity; no poetic closed form; and no overseas non-interrogational pining for a rose-tinted Singapore.
Instead, the anthology’s eighteen poets, ranging from headliners such as the Singapore Literature Prize winner Marylyn Tan (who is co-editor with Jee Leong Koh) and Hamid Roslan to the relatively unknown but compelling ila, write with a refreshingly mawkish-free assurance about crises of identity, neo-colonialism, the place of LGBTQ people in society and mummy-daddy issues.
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- Tags: Issue 30, Jee Leong Koh, Linda Collins, Marylyn Tan, Singapore