SINGAPORE — What makes a rainy Saturday better? Aside from staying in bed, of course, that would be listening to some great poets read their poetry just for you.

One name in particular made me glad that I was early for a session — Carol Ann Duffy. It was a full house yesterday (Nov 9) as everyone squeezed in to catch a glimpse of the UK Poet Laureate. While some, like me, were lucky to get a seat (being a kancheong spider 20 minutes early has some perks), many others had to stand at the back of the tent and some even sat on the floor. It wasn’t hard to see that she had many fans here — many came were “armed” with Duffy’s books, and I was pretty sure that a girl who sat behind me got excited because, apparently, Duffy looked at her and smiled. (Lucky girl.)

The session saw Duffy reading poems from her old and new collections (Rapture, The Bees), including Text, Tea, from Mrs Tiresias and Virgil Bees.

There was a short discussion afterwards, in which a “controversial” poem of hers was brought up — Education For Leisure — where an invigilator concluded that the poem was encouraging youths to commit knife crimes.

“I wrote it when Meryl Streep was prime minister of the UK,” she joked (Streep played the late Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady), but later explained that it was written during the ‘80s and was it was a “pro-education, anti-employment” poem. She added that it was “exploring what might happen to a badly educated teenage boy”.

Duffy also shared how she started getting into poetry in school. She was “incredibly lucky” with her teachers after being introduced to Dylan Thomas by a teacher who lent her a book, a green paperback, featuring Thomas with a cigarette.

“And he looked really cool,” said Duffy. “That made me not only love poetry, but also see poetry as kind of sexy.”

But hey, if anyone can make poetry look sexy, it would be Duffy for sure.

***

Speaking of sexy, err, poetry, I also attended a session featuring Kosal Khiev and Marc Nair. It was a nice contrast — Khiev’s poems are “darker” while Nair’s are more light-hearted and humorous in a way.

Khiev had quite a story to tell. Born in a Thai refugee camp, he fled with his family to the United States as a boy. At 16, he was charged with attempted murder where he was tried as an adult and, while in prison, discovered the poetry of a former Vietnam War veteran.

Asked by Khiev what got him into poetry, Nair answered: “Nothing as spectacular as being locked up. It was actually physics lessons in school — I could not concentrate. And then, in JC, it was economics lesson.”

After Nair read one of his poems titled Along The Yellow Line, the two engaged in a conversation about identity — Nair is Singaporean while Khiev currently lives as an exiled American in Phnom Penh.

Before reading one poem titled Without Condition, Khiev shared his story of his release from the US prison, where they revoked his permanent resident status and deported him to Cambodia.

“I wonder about that — permanent. It’s not so permanent,” he said halfway with a laugh before adding that they dropped him off with nothing. “That’s the cold part about it. They just dropped me off — no IDs, no passport, no money.”

The conversation wasn’t always so serious — Khiev had the audience laughing as he rambled about how expensive a plate of nachos and milkshake cost here, to which Nair replied (speaking on behalf of us Singaporeans I bet): “Welcome to Singapore.”

Nair also read one poem titled How To Make Paper, which I found rather cheeky and humorous. Excerpts of that poem made me chuckle: “For the rare artistic papermakers, those who believe in the aesthetic value of paper, you may incorporate plant materials in your paper; shreds of flowers, petals or leaves. But no stickers in public, that is far too mischievous.”

At the end of the session, I was pretty sure people enjoyed it as much as I did. I gave up trying to purchase Khiev’s book— everyone was queuing up to buy it. I did, however, get Nair to sign my copy of his new book, Postal Code.

***

And speaking of addresses, that Saturday evening also led me to The Substation, where Malaysia-based Marco Ferrarese had an “unofficial” launch of his book Nazi Goreng, which was launched at the SWF proper today.

“Why not?” said The Substation artistic director Noor Effendy Ibrahim when asked about launching it there. “They approached us and said ‘Can we do this?’, and I’ve heard about the book also, and I thought it would be interesting — it’s a right place to (launch it).”

Nazi Goreng (bet you did a double take on the title) is a book about a naive Muslim skinhead recruited into a Neo-Nazi gang. And yes, judging by the crowd, The Substation was the perfect place to launch this book.

What was it like to be in a room full of people from the sub-culture scene, attending a book launch about Malay skinheads? Well, it was a little awkward, I have to admit, but I stayed anyway. Ferrarese started off sharing how he found about these Malay skinheads and “Kuasa Melayu” (Malay Power) in Malaysia, and what his book was about — one could say that he’s treading on thin ice writing a book with a rather touchy topic.

“If you know subcultures and want to read a novel, you would not like to read about what the guy is wearing and whether he’s going to be authentically punk or stuff like that. And my book is not questioning the fact that in South-east Asia, the music scene is valid or not — because my belonging as a guitarist, I notice that sometimes people are defensive when the white guys come in,” said Ferrarese.

There weren’t many questions from the audience, although the title of the book, Nazi Goreng (I’m sure we all know the pun here) was brought up more than once.

Ferrarese said he chose it because of a simple reason really — it was funny.

Quipped one audience: “Nasi Lemak would be the second one!”

The Singapore Writers Festival 2013 ends today. Check out the buzz on the local arts scene at http://www.todayonline.com/artlanders.