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misspalah's review
4.0
Why this upheaval
constant as our coastlines
eaten by tides,
the way streets and lands
are chewed and spat
between the pages of directories
till the crumbling past
is no more than a concrete heap
ready for another retro-fit?
We are a country of dust where nothing is saved but face.
- Work in Progress by Felix Cheong (No other city - The ethos anthology of Urban Poetry)
.
.
I went to Singapore right before Pandemic in January 2020 with my best friends. I was impressed with how well the country progressed leaving behind their neighboring countries. Its like the urban jungle on steroid : public transport is top notch, clean and well-maintained facilities and everything that i hope Malaysia can be one day (before proud Malaysian came and attacking me, let me say that we are okay but WE CAN DO BETTER and IMPROVE). BUT, reading this poetry book prompted me to ponder what its like living in this country as my observation strictly limited as a traveler - someone that visited and returned after 4 days. Most of these singaporean poets shared despair over rapid development, their past has been transformed to fit the demand of properties. Long gone almost all the kampung leaving behind only 1 for tourism and commercial purpose, long gone their trees greeneries to make way of highway, park and road, long gone the memories of birds in nearby forest and crabs at the beaches. Dont get me wrong, some of these poets did talk about how grateful that their country managed to prove others wrong - how this young nation managed to rise and establish themselves as one of the developed countries despite some remarks stated that they are not going to make it. However, they also lamented of the lost of spaces, almost hinting that they felt claustrophobic in their own country. Fun fact, Singapore is smaller than Perlis - one of the northern states in Malaysia. Perlis has been enduring running joke among Malaysians that they only have 4 people considering how small the state is. Now, imagine with more than 6 millions population living in a country smaller than Perlis - (adding this for comparison if any Malaysians read this review). I honestly cant pick favorite on this collection - All of them make sense and really resonated well with Malaysia at the moment such as the changing landscape to make way for housing, urban gentrification and the forest reserve status being removed so that the land can be used for development. These are just among many issues that i can point out to why these poets were so frustrated by it. I did recognized few Singaporeans Author that contributed their poems in this book like Alfian Saat, Cyril Wong, Leong Liew Geok, and Ng Yi shen. Overall, this is a truly solid collection of poems - every single one of them. I may not be able to understand 100% percent what these poets emote in their poems as i am not singaporean but i believe Singaporean can relate to it more. I will not do any review on these poems as the introduction in this book has done well in elaborating the intention of each poems. I will just share 1 poem that for me stood out in highlighting the demolition of the past, the building of the what was supposed to be future and the feeling of entrapment.
.
Urbanesque by Dennis Yeo
i.
streets, extending past the boundary of sky and earth, along paths of droning. motorised noise; melding into a public landscape, a massive claustrophobic complex humanised by ceaseless shitting over concrete surfaces.
edifices surround, transfixing the cloud-buffered sky above: permanent hives of transient activity, operating on airconditioners and office politics, artificial ambience and stacks of dried pulp. along the roads hurtle myriads of cars and other mechanical animals. sideways the city
looms, sudden, and slowly, in time-lapse photography buildings change exteriors and attract buzzing crowds.
ii.
row upon row of repeated flats blot out the forecasted sky with varied cubist patterns, inner-worn labyrinths of human proximity. footpaths and fields and playgrounds and roads meander familiar paths over well-cropped blades, tread and forgotten every minute,
all shades and polygons engraved on an accurate sketching, a three-D plan of an island, (somewhere in the middle of a sunny ocean) weaved cell-like, measured geometry interspersed with lines, a tempered blood system splayed across green acres:
the face of a familiar painting.
ill.
somewhere, an old man sits, vaguely positioned on an ordered map; he has no place on this canvas. ungainly joints jut as the ground rests on him, neither moving.
a reclusive figure beside an uncomprehending road singular but still unnoticed he stays unmoving as plastic hands spin, crazily.
eyes follow the shifting, the remote prospect of a role in the clockwork, but not legs, however willing.
constant as our coastlines
eaten by tides,
the way streets and lands
are chewed and spat
between the pages of directories
till the crumbling past
is no more than a concrete heap
ready for another retro-fit?
We are a country of dust where nothing is saved but face.
- Work in Progress by Felix Cheong (No other city - The ethos anthology of Urban Poetry)
.
.
I went to Singapore right before Pandemic in January 2020 with my best friends. I was impressed with how well the country progressed leaving behind their neighboring countries. Its like the urban jungle on steroid : public transport is top notch, clean and well-maintained facilities and everything that i hope Malaysia can be one day (before proud Malaysian came and attacking me, let me say that we are okay but WE CAN DO BETTER and IMPROVE). BUT, reading this poetry book prompted me to ponder what its like living in this country as my observation strictly limited as a traveler - someone that visited and returned after 4 days. Most of these singaporean poets shared despair over rapid development, their past has been transformed to fit the demand of properties. Long gone almost all the kampung leaving behind only 1 for tourism and commercial purpose, long gone their trees greeneries to make way of highway, park and road, long gone the memories of birds in nearby forest and crabs at the beaches. Dont get me wrong, some of these poets did talk about how grateful that their country managed to prove others wrong - how this young nation managed to rise and establish themselves as one of the developed countries despite some remarks stated that they are not going to make it. However, they also lamented of the lost of spaces, almost hinting that they felt claustrophobic in their own country. Fun fact, Singapore is smaller than Perlis - one of the northern states in Malaysia. Perlis has been enduring running joke among Malaysians that they only have 4 people considering how small the state is. Now, imagine with more than 6 millions population living in a country smaller than Perlis - (adding this for comparison if any Malaysians read this review). I honestly cant pick favorite on this collection - All of them make sense and really resonated well with Malaysia at the moment such as the changing landscape to make way for housing, urban gentrification and the forest reserve status being removed so that the land can be used for development. These are just among many issues that i can point out to why these poets were so frustrated by it. I did recognized few Singaporeans Author that contributed their poems in this book like Alfian Saat, Cyril Wong, Leong Liew Geok, and Ng Yi shen. Overall, this is a truly solid collection of poems - every single one of them. I may not be able to understand 100% percent what these poets emote in their poems as i am not singaporean but i believe Singaporean can relate to it more. I will not do any review on these poems as the introduction in this book has done well in elaborating the intention of each poems. I will just share 1 poem that for me stood out in highlighting the demolition of the past, the building of the what was supposed to be future and the feeling of entrapment.
.
Urbanesque by Dennis Yeo
i.
streets, extending past the boundary of sky and earth, along paths of droning. motorised noise; melding into a public landscape, a massive claustrophobic complex humanised by ceaseless shitting over concrete surfaces.
edifices surround, transfixing the cloud-buffered sky above: permanent hives of transient activity, operating on airconditioners and office politics, artificial ambience and stacks of dried pulp. along the roads hurtle myriads of cars and other mechanical animals. sideways the city
looms, sudden, and slowly, in time-lapse photography buildings change exteriors and attract buzzing crowds.
ii.
row upon row of repeated flats blot out the forecasted sky with varied cubist patterns, inner-worn labyrinths of human proximity. footpaths and fields and playgrounds and roads meander familiar paths over well-cropped blades, tread and forgotten every minute,
all shades and polygons engraved on an accurate sketching, a three-D plan of an island, (somewhere in the middle of a sunny ocean) weaved cell-like, measured geometry interspersed with lines, a tempered blood system splayed across green acres:
the face of a familiar painting.
ill.
somewhere, an old man sits, vaguely positioned on an ordered map; he has no place on this canvas. ungainly joints jut as the ground rests on him, neither moving.
a reclusive figure beside an uncomprehending road singular but still unnoticed he stays unmoving as plastic hands spin, crazily.
eyes follow the shifting, the remote prospect of a role in the clockwork, but not legs, however willing.
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