Writers from China's diaspora
A postcard much cherished by Yeow Kai Chai offers the wisdom of Pablo Picasso: 'If you know exactly what you are going to do, what is the point of doing it?'
That, for the 37-year-old Singaporean poet, sums up what poetry is all about: tapping the unknown and appreciating what isn't readily understood.
Somewhat lengthy and laden with pop-culture catchphrases, Yeow's second book, Pretend I'm Not Here, can hardly be called accessible. But that's precisely the challenge he wants his readers to embrace.
'You don't have to understand every single thing in my poems,' he says. 'I certainly don't. So, just go with the flow. The pop-culture references can be understood as such, or they can be appreciated for their linguistic nature, even if you have no clue what they allude to.' Yeow also says that it's each poet's responsibility to probe 'the sacred cow of accessibility' in order to move ahead.
'The task itself is life-changing, not dishing out competent, mellifluously wrought poems that say nothing new and are self-fulfilling and smug in their own empathy. John Ashbery describes his own poetry as 'walking in the dark, but then getting used to the dark'. That's such a liberating insight.'
