High hopes for multilingual poetry festival

SINGAPORE — A poetry-style recreation of the Kallang Roar at the National Stadium might seem far-fetched, but organisers of the inaugural Singapore National Poetry Festival are looking to a future where the literary art form could fill up huge venues.

“Why not? There’s a growing audience and we have the facilities,” said festival director Eric Tinsay Valles, who cited Russian poets such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko in the 1950s and early 1960s, who would hold readings to crowds at sport stadiums.

The festival has relatively modest ambitions for a start: A series of readings, workshops and a symposium held at smaller venues such as the National Library and Gardens by the Bay.

The three-day event, which will showcase poetry in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, will begin on Friday night at LASALLE College of the Arts, with readings from Cultural Medallion recipients Edwin Thumboo and Professor Wong Yoon Wah, as well as Ms K Kanagalatha, Mr Tang Jui Piow, Mr Azhar Ibrahim and Mr Joshua Ip.

Some 36 writers will be taking part, including other Cultural Medallion recipients such as Mr KTM Iqbal and Mr Suratman Markasan, Singapore Writers Festival director Yeow Kai Chai, Mr Cyril Wong, Mr Gwee Li Sui, Ms Deborah Emmanuel and Ms Asnida Daud.

The popularity of poetry in Singapore today has come a long way since 1968, when the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew famously said “poetry was a luxury we cannot afford”, said Mr Valles. “It’s a mode of expression that we can’t do without now. It’s the most popular literary genre that’s published in English, Tamil and Malay — there are more books in this genre than in others,” he said.

“There are so many avenues for poetry writing as well, from competitions to anthologies.”

One such competition held earlier was the Singapore National Poetry Competition, for which 200 entries were received in all four languages. Its winners will be announced during the festival and an anthology of the winning submissions could be published in future.

While not the first multi-lingual poetry event to be held — a short-lived festival took place during the early years of the Republic, spearheaded by the likes of Prof Thumboo, Mr Wong Meng Voon, Mr Masuri S N and Mr V T Arasu -- the event befits the national mood, said Mr Valles. “It’s SG50, after all, and people are celebrating nationhood, what it means to be Singaporean, and that is ultimately intertwined with the mother languages,” said the poet and educator.

The festival also hopes to connect the different poetry scenes. “Right now we’re trying to build an audience for Singaporean poetry. There are already poetry slams and open mics in bars and cafes, and we would like people from the different (poetry scenes) to learn more from each other. Not too many people know there’s Tamil slam poetry, for example,” he said, citing one of the festival’s events on Sunday, a poetry slam in Tamil accompanied by percussion music.