Teaching Lit.
Things have been tolerable so far with NIE: I sleep on the train; I meet Julian and Yijia for lunch betimes; imbeciles occur only in morning classes so I'm already delirious anyway; and best of all trainee PE teachers wander around in see-through shorts.
Lit classes are the best, until the tutor against all proprieties of good taste and hygiene brought in the works of Local Poets. The travesty in this instance was Alfian Sa'at. (The worst thing about young Poets, you know, is that they have so many more years left in them. People like Edwin Thumboo and Catherine Lim, they'll be in a better place soon, God knows we deserve it.)
A few of my classmates, bless their cotton socks, were valiantly charitable. He is honest, began one. He tries to capture the Singaporean Voice, essayed another.
The back of a cereal box is also honest. The blubberings of Protestant heretics under torture is honest. Why do people keep saying that? Am I alone in thinking poems should be poems? That there should at least be an attempt at craft? That there be a rudimentary grasp of aesthetics? That people should know when to shut the fuck up?! O, o, o but we get unremitting emotional pornography, not merely excreted but lovingly and earnestly wrought, then just as earnestly discussed by classesful of slack-mouthed morons who make farfetched claims of having done Engrish Ritriture for their Honours degrees.
I do think it a very worthy effort, trying to capture the Singaporean Voice; to do what Virgil did for the Romans, or Chaucer for English, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez for South American writing. But simply writing in Singlish does not the Singleid make. I cannot and do not claim to know what it takes; but as a reader I want at least an explicit recognition of some common rhythm, and a clear articulation of what can be done in Singlish that cannot be done in any language else; at the very least, Singlish, or the Singaporean Voice, whatever that may be, in artistic expression, should be a freedom rather than a restraint; buoyancy rather than burden. The best we have achieved so far I think is cultural prostitution: there are distinctive traits, I mean Singaporean writing is idiosyncratic and immediately recognisable to another Singaporean, and at least exotic to others; but we cannot with any degree of honesty say we derive unflinching self-identity from it.
Lit classes are the best, until the tutor against all proprieties of good taste and hygiene brought in the works of Local Poets. The travesty in this instance was Alfian Sa'at. (The worst thing about young Poets, you know, is that they have so many more years left in them. People like Edwin Thumboo and Catherine Lim, they'll be in a better place soon, God knows we deserve it.)
A few of my classmates, bless their cotton socks, were valiantly charitable. He is honest, began one. He tries to capture the Singaporean Voice, essayed another.
The back of a cereal box is also honest. The blubberings of Protestant heretics under torture is honest. Why do people keep saying that? Am I alone in thinking poems should be poems? That there should at least be an attempt at craft? That there be a rudimentary grasp of aesthetics? That people should know when to shut the fuck up?! O, o, o but we get unremitting emotional pornography, not merely excreted but lovingly and earnestly wrought, then just as earnestly discussed by classesful of slack-mouthed morons who make farfetched claims of having done Engrish Ritriture for their Honours degrees.
I do think it a very worthy effort, trying to capture the Singaporean Voice; to do what Virgil did for the Romans, or Chaucer for English, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez for South American writing. But simply writing in Singlish does not the Singleid make. I cannot and do not claim to know what it takes; but as a reader I want at least an explicit recognition of some common rhythm, and a clear articulation of what can be done in Singlish that cannot be done in any language else; at the very least, Singlish, or the Singaporean Voice, whatever that may be, in artistic expression, should be a freedom rather than a restraint; buoyancy rather than burden. The best we have achieved so far I think is cultural prostitution: there are distinctive traits, I mean Singaporean writing is idiosyncratic and immediately recognisable to another Singaporean, and at least exotic to others; but we cannot with any degree of honesty say we derive unflinching self-identity from it.
