Words On A Peg

I realise I have not written anything on this site for a whole year. And I am ashamed. But I have been writing poems, working on poems, doing gigs, reading poems, exploring my writing.
I've started up a really cool collaboration with my friend and soul mate and fellow exceptionally cool human being Anjana Srinivasan.
We're called "The Mango Dollies" and we do a combination of spoken word and music which falls mostly into the category of folk, blues or country. I think it's a very nice raw, clean sound and we have a lot of fun working on it.
Our gig's coming up in January at the Esplanade which I'm pretty excited about. In general
this year has been a year of consolidation and a work in progress. 2010 promises more exciting things. And I SWEAR to be diligent with this blog. I have appointed a friend of mine my manager and I will pay him with witty insight and poems.

A short list of what I did this year

1. Worked with the proletariat poetry factory who are very very very cool. Also it fulfilled my life long dream of working on a typewriter.

2. Cool T-shirt collaboration with Arnold and the Ministry of Press

3. Am 80% done with Second Manuscript

4. Tried my hand at Flash Fiction for the Straits Times Christmas Special http://www.facebook.com/#/photo.php?pid=4159786&id=578453102

5. Started The Mango Dollies and we've already done two very cool gigs at Raw Kitchen and the 15 minutes Cafe.

Hopefully 2010 presents even more cool frontiers. GodSpeed.

Pooja wrote at 9:26 PM [ 0 Comments ]

So the photoshoot yesterday was hilarious and being the only girl I kept being shoved into the middle...also because I was the shortest. But it was fun fooling around and being a riot in poor Arnold's shop. The T-shirts turned out fabulous and you can probably see the full catalogue on the Ministry of Press website. But here are a couple of pictures of mine! More coverage on Thursday in Straits Times methinks.
In other news, today was one of the days I loved my job.

Pooja wrote at 3:21 PM [ 0 Comments ]

Two entries in and I'm already guilty of neglect. Not a good sign. But it's a Monday morning and I'm meant to be planning classes so this is a healthy distraction.
Some exciting updates about the Ministry of Press t-shirts I was talking about in my previous entry. I'm headed down for a photo shoot today and the venture is going to be covered in the Straits Times on Thursday. More than anything, I'm excited to see how the t shirt turned out and I promise to post up some images as soon as I get them.

Also over the weekend I went to watch Bani Haykal perform a series of monologues at the Substation Imprimatura series.
As usual he was intense, and his material was elegiac and instinctive and beautifully delivered.
I've worked with Bani previously on Feed the Poets, when our books were published together and I 've always thought him to be delightfully quirky and inspiring. With his stuff, you've got to stop trying to make sense of it and just go with your gut..and you will come out of it with something. My colleague Erin who was previously a performance poetry virgin is testament to this.
I wish I could go watch Jocelyn Chua this weekend but I'm doing whole day workshops with Hoipolloi
and am thus committed to spending Valentine's day with the theater. :)

Other than that, we're planning a little evening of poetry and music in school on the 12th of Feb. I've got Felix Cheong and Bani Haykal to agree to come down and I think it will do the kids a hoard of good to experience different styles and material and meet people who have made a living writing.
Why don't I do that? It's not that I completely subscribe to the 'one must have a stable job' philosophy as much as I ...okay...wait for it...actually like teaching. I know. shockwaves.
But I do. As much as I hate the beaurocratic aspects of my job, I love how each day is different. And working with young people is always dynamic ( this can be good or bad depending on the day. Hah.)
Do i wish for more time to write? Of Course!
Am I ready to take a hiatus from teaching for a bit? Maybe. I'm still mulling on that one. And if my bosses are reading this, don't worry, I won't up and leave anytime soon without proper notice *bright eyed smile*

I've been meaning to write a post about this strange dichotomy of stage and page in poetry, and I will. Just not right now. More next time on that as well as the photo shoot.
Till then, as Bani says, peace and chicken grease.

Song playing incessantly in my head right now: Joh Wada Kiya
Listen to this and ignore the tacky costuming and acting. If you understand Hindi or are incredibly intuitive about music, you might understand why my recent poems have been fascinated with old Hindi playback singers. There's a romance and pain in these songs that I cannot quite explain to someone in words.

Pooja wrote at 8:07 AM [ 0 Comments ]

So many opportunities have presented themselves to me just this year itself. And for a lot of them I've got to thank Yi-sheng for being so kind to think of me whenever something presented itself for me to put my work out there.

I first met Yi-Sheng at the opening poetry slam in Singapore where Mark Smith had come to visit...and he won that round with his 'loud poem' which he still performs with as much mad energy and rhythm today ( but only if really pressured into it) *grin*
He's recently won the Singapore Literature Prize which is a big deal but what I really like about him is his effort in trying to create a real sense of community between writers in this country.
Much of the dynamics of poetry publication in this country have resulted in a created, and in my opinion artificial dichotomy between performance and page poets. But that's a whole other post for a whole other time.

But yes, thanks to Yi-sheng, I've done a series of poems for Ministry of Press . Arnold who owns the store is doing a lovely thing in getting a bunch of poets to write 14 word poems for t-shirts to be sold in the month of Feb as a Valentine's day series. I was sold on the idea even before I went to meet him but when he made his spiel about how Literature and Poetry are dying disciplines, I would have written those poems for free for him.
But it was a really cool experience and I had a great time doing that project. Can't wait to see how the t shirts turn out.

Also he recently sent me an email asking if I could send him some poems for consideration for publication in "The Drunken Boat" a poetry journal by Ravi Shankar who also edited the poetry anthology, "Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond" . My answer was a big resounding DUH YEAH!
Recently the Curriculum Planning and Development Division at the Ministry of Education also included one of my poems in a teaching resource package for the Post Colonial Lit paper at A' Levels. I was mortified, embarrassed but also in some strange way stoked.
It's nice to be recognised, good to get feedback both positive and negative and generally, really great to have my work out there. Hopefully this year will be a good one for my writing. And I'm looking forward to crafting this new collection.

And on that note, I go back to the reality that I have a JC2 class to teach in an hour and need to prepare some guiding tutorial questions for Chapters 4-8 for Pride and Prejudice ....

Pooja wrote at 8:58 AM [ 0 Comments ]

So as the world welcomes America's first (very sexy) African American president, I decide to follow the advice of a man who I respect very very much ( that's a shout out to Jacob Sam La Rose) and put myself "out there" by setting up this blog so that I can make my presence felt.
Mostly though I finally got my butt down to it because I think it will help keep me writing. Amidst the administrative paperwork that is really almost 40% of my 'dynamic' job, most days I feel completely uninspired to put anything down on paper, and when I do, I scribble it in my trusty notebook which then faithfully preserves it between its covers.
Maybe this will add some sort of rigour. Not poetry exactly but at least it will give me a space to write about what I think about poetry, what I've read , what I'm up to.

I'm working on a new collection this year, and I'm pretty excited about the concept because it allows me to get out there and talk to people and listen to their stories. And I feel like I'm gaining as much creative input as I'm expecting myself to churn out.

On another note, I've started working out. *shocked gasps and faints all around* yeah yeah I know...but hey you know the metabolism is no longer what it used to be and fabulosity comes at a price. So I was hardcore today 6 km on the treadmill. Yesterday I did almost 8km...
YAY ME!

So there you go, my very post to get me started and I've got to thank Michael for this beautiful artwork and layout. Took you some time, but you did brilliant!
YAY Michael..

So I'm posting a poem a day...just something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand or made everything around me stand still for a bit, something I'm in the midst of writing, or just a few words that made my tummy do that swirly thing it does.
But here we go people...
whenever anybody tells me I won't keep this up...YES I CAN.

Pooja wrote at 6:45 PM [ 0 Comments ]