Last Thursday night I decided to pop down to the Subtext poetry reading at the National Library. Subtext is one of the poetry events I mentioned previously. It was pretty good; there were four performers:
- Cyril Wong, who read from his latest collection on the gay scene in Singapore. It was an interesting view from a not-so-well known side of Singapore, but I felt that he used a few too many cliches in his writing.
- Koh Tsin Yen, who wrote meditative pieces on her New England experiences
- Shamini Flint, a very witty speaker, who read extracts from her locally-set murder mystery (which I bought a copy of).
- Ray McNiece, an American Tom Waits soundalike, who gave performance pieces on his life as a travelling poet. I also bought one of his CDs, though I haven’t listened to it yet.
I’m glad I’ve finally got myself together to start attending cultural events like this, although I don’t really have the skillset to really appreciate them, I guess. Who knows, though: perhaps attending a few more will inspire me to try to write something myself…
I thought it was Ray McNiece who had ALL the cliches, but I guess most people won’t see it because he panders to the audience with his predicatble American styling. I think Cyril Wong’s award-winning poetry is breathtakingly imagistic and beautiful. Do check out more of his work at http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/wong.html