| Title | : | A Luxury We Cannot Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 9810926537 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9789810926533 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 160 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 2014 |
As our island nation approaches its 50th anniversary wielding extraordinary wealth and prosperity, it is timely to review the narrative that has shepherded us through the past half-century. Indeed, it seems only poetic justice to examine this polarising mythos through the ballyhooed medium of poetry. To praise and appraise this most poetic of figures, 56 of Singapore's finest poets offer up 65 poems that promise to excite, exhilarate, and electrify, to a man.
A Luxury We Cannot Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry Reviews
-
This is a brilliant collection. I liked many of them, some more than others. It's my first time reading Singaporean poetry and it was very eye-opening and heartwarming as a Singaporean reader. The poems were very unique to being a Singaporean and I think others may find it challenging to understand and interpret. I will be reading more local works from hereon.
-
Anthologies, by nature, are always a bit of a hit and miss. There were many poems here that I liked and others that did not connect with me. I think here I found the subject matter tiresome after a while--I grew tired of dwelling on Lee Kuan Yew, poetry, censorship, and the state; and it did not help that there was a repetition of that damned image of him crying on TV in black and white. I couldn't decide if I wanted him humanised, lionised, or damned; and maybe it just reflects my own ambivalence about LKY in general, my desire to move away from this one-man show that does not define the outer limits of what I know to be Singapore. The final two lines, written by David Wong in a poem titled "Impossible Biography", sums it up: "For who among us have seen him? / Who among us treading water beneath his tower have seen anything at all?"
-
I stumbled across this book by accident in a little shop in Joo Chiat the other day. What a find! It is an anthology of poems published last year, only months before the death of Lee Kuan Yew, reflecting on the nature and complexity of the man who called poetry a luxury Singapore could not afford. A fascinating honest daring moving creative mixture of respect and critique directed toward the man and his legacy. It marks a moment in history and is the sort of anthology you can pick up and dip into many times over; I expect I will.
-
One book with varying views that offer different perspectives that truly got to me - both the use of the language of the poets contributing to this anthology, and also what each of these poems meant.
Kudos to The Man who inspired these wonderful works. -
Some hits and misses, but a meaningful collection exploring one of our famed myths, coinciding with Singapore’s 50th birthday
-
Curiosity level: Beautiful, honest, and enchanting
"I know. What you meant to say is: we cannot afford poetry as a luxury, for poetry is not luxurious. It is simply necessary." - p.33
In this anthology of poems, 56 of our country's best poets dedicate poems to "The Man". He had raised a country from the ashes to beauty - but there were things that even great men like him can't never get away with saying. One was his (in)famous maxim: "Poetry is a luxury we cannot afford".
Spanning 65 poems, these poet citizens lovingly (some cheekily) respond to His quote, to His rulership and life. -
One of the most coherent anthologies out there! Probably all thanks to one man...
-
Perspectives are essential in life, and I had the opportunity to read this after The Man has passed on. This gave me a wonderful chance to read the anthology in retrospect, rather than the original intention, being published in 2014. There is a whole plethora of ideas, some placed in uncanny juxtapositions, others in intriguing methods, yet perhaps these unplanned contradictions hint at a complicated portrait of The Man. I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology, of which I can quote the ending lines of the final poem, which offers us another avenue to consider our founding father in.
"For who among us have seen him? / Who among us treading water beneath his tower have seen / anything at all?" -
I now appreciate local literature. It's something to be able to understand the writers' and their lingo. It's something to understand things because you're Singaporean, it makes it a lot more relatable and a lot more raw. I feel connected somehow. There are really good poems in this collection, such as "Cut". It's one of my personal favourites. I feel a lot more optimistic about the local literature scene after reading this collection. Maybe we're onto something here.
-
I sped through this. This is an electrifying collection and very thought-provoking. It reads like a very intense examination of poetry as a "luxury we cannot afford" and a thorough questioning of Singapore's narrative of pragmatism. A whole gallery of poets and voices rotate before the reader to give their thoughts and feelings of poetry, pragmatism and the Man. Some are sympathetic to him, some are critical, some are contemplative, some are callous. It has made me reflect on the ways Singaporeans view him, from the overwhelmingly positive public to the very negative singlit minority.
