Editors’ Note
In the last days of July, one of us texts another:
"It's hotter in London than Singapore today."
"What's the temp?"
"34."
"Holy cow."
"But not so humid here, so it is ok. But, on other hand, no aircon..."
"Why no aircon?! Isn't aircon a basic human right?"
Flippant first-world problems, but climate change makes fools of us all, sometimes. As we wait for summer temperatures to come down, and some of our corresponding fiery tempers to abate, we present a new clutch of works for your perusal. Natalie Cheung turns her cool gaze at urban subjects (and otters!), while Brian Khoo contemplates the quiet poetics of space.
Holly Day's poems wages war against furniture, among other idiosyncratic reactions to domestic life; in a similar vein, John Grey's poetry brings out the paranoia of suburbia and the weirdness of public spaces. James Croal Jackson rounds off this trio of poets casting a wary eye at the familiar we inhabit.
Margaret Devadason's fiction and Koshika Sandrasagra's stanzas both approach the subject of gardens - from very different angles: the former reconsiders linguistics, transgression and freedom in Eden; while the latter seeks fresh spiritual beginnings.
Edward Koay and Samuel Caleb Wee coincidentally turned in short stories starring animals. Again, absurdism is parlayed into very different effects in their individual stories. (Wee also has an ekphrastic poem in this issue.)
Meanwhile, John Lee's long prose-poem comprising three fragments pulse with a strange restlessness, neurotic in a way that would be quite at home with the Day-Grey-Jackson contributions, but just on the verge of some kind of disquieting political revelation. A manifesto, a cry for help, a muffled roar of anger?
Possibly on the other end of the spectrum: Ian C Smith's verse comes to us with playful humour, sitting in an automat. Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal poem is paradoxically self-aware and non-commital about its position as a poem, even as it traces its own whereabouts. And Thao Nhi Do's writerly persona tries on sanguine longing.
Enjoy/survive the hot weather, and try not to flip out.
July 29, 2018
"It's hotter in London than Singapore today."
"What's the temp?"
"34."
"Holy cow."
"But not so humid here, so it is ok. But, on other hand, no aircon..."
"Why no aircon?! Isn't aircon a basic human right?"
Flippant first-world problems, but climate change makes fools of us all, sometimes. As we wait for summer temperatures to come down, and some of our corresponding fiery tempers to abate, we present a new clutch of works for your perusal. Natalie Cheung turns her cool gaze at urban subjects (and otters!), while Brian Khoo contemplates the quiet poetics of space.
Holly Day's poems wages war against furniture, among other idiosyncratic reactions to domestic life; in a similar vein, John Grey's poetry brings out the paranoia of suburbia and the weirdness of public spaces. James Croal Jackson rounds off this trio of poets casting a wary eye at the familiar we inhabit.
Margaret Devadason's fiction and Koshika Sandrasagra's stanzas both approach the subject of gardens - from very different angles: the former reconsiders linguistics, transgression and freedom in Eden; while the latter seeks fresh spiritual beginnings.
Edward Koay and Samuel Caleb Wee coincidentally turned in short stories starring animals. Again, absurdism is parlayed into very different effects in their individual stories. (Wee also has an ekphrastic poem in this issue.)
Meanwhile, John Lee's long prose-poem comprising three fragments pulse with a strange restlessness, neurotic in a way that would be quite at home with the Day-Grey-Jackson contributions, but just on the verge of some kind of disquieting political revelation. A manifesto, a cry for help, a muffled roar of anger?
Possibly on the other end of the spectrum: Ian C Smith's verse comes to us with playful humour, sitting in an automat. Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal poem is paradoxically self-aware and non-commital about its position as a poem, even as it traces its own whereabouts. And Thao Nhi Do's writerly persona tries on sanguine longing.
Enjoy/survive the hot weather, and try not to flip out.
July 29, 2018
