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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
Ok so
This book is beautiful in so many ways. I read this (all the English translated poems) and felt a lot like an outsider peeking into the lives of the Malay community. As a Singaporean Chinese I felt strongly reminded of the sense of longing that older folks have for a Singapore which was that much more peaceful and harmonious and rooted in the soils of our traditions and cultures and religions; maybe it's due to the fact that not all of us Chinese folks are that grounded anymore, living our lives rather separate from religion and culture and history.
This anthology is a sore reminder that eventually we all need something small, minute and tangible to hold on to keep us sane. For many of the Malay poets here, their religion, and the memories of growing up in the kampung is what they grasp hold of to try and make sense of this fast-paced world.
This book is beautiful in so many ways. I read this (all the English translated poems) and felt a lot like an outsider peeking into the lives of the Malay community. As a Singaporean Chinese I felt strongly reminded of the sense of longing that older folks have for a Singapore which was that much more peaceful and harmonious and rooted in the soils of our traditions and cultures and religions; maybe it's due to the fact that not all of us Chinese folks are that grounded anymore, living our lives rather separate from religion and culture and history.
This anthology is a sore reminder that eventually we all need something small, minute and tangible to hold on to keep us sane. For many of the Malay poets here, their religion, and the memories of growing up in the kampung is what they grasp hold of to try and make sense of this fast-paced world.
National narratives often present the speed of development Singapore went through after independence as a success story. One that proves our miraculous and meteoric rise from “third-world to first.” But of course, it is imperative to remember that this is a national narrative, a constructed one, or at the very least a kind of wilful selection and shaping of facts. The poems in the collection present a different narrative: one where the speed of development people bore witness to was experienced with a sense of longing, mournfulness, loss, and even a sense of disassociation and dislocation. More importantly, the poems are also a form of resistance against the speed of forgetting that accompanies the kind of development we are caught in, where places are destroyed and rebuilt faster than our memory and recording can cope with.
For a moment, these poems throw us into the personal narratives and memories of these places. In just another decade, perhaps this book would provide the only lasting piece of existing memory to remember some of the historical images and memories recounted. Who else will remember the smell of a river so many decades back, or the call of the birds? Who else might remember that a place once had another name, and that for a long time, nobody had called it any other way? Perhaps this anthology of poems can be a call for us to also participate in the act of slowness and remembering; to write our own kind of poems to fossilise what would be swept away so quickly by the winds of capital and national development.
Full review here: https://criticallit.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/sikit-sikit-lama-lama-jadi-bukit-an-anthology-ed-by-annaliza-bakri/
For a moment, these poems throw us into the personal narratives and memories of these places. In just another decade, perhaps this book would provide the only lasting piece of existing memory to remember some of the historical images and memories recounted. Who else will remember the smell of a river so many decades back, or the call of the birds? Who else might remember that a place once had another name, and that for a long time, nobody had called it any other way? Perhaps this anthology of poems can be a call for us to also participate in the act of slowness and remembering; to write our own kind of poems to fossilise what would be swept away so quickly by the winds of capital and national development.
Full review here: https://criticallit.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/sikit-sikit-lama-lama-jadi-bukit-an-anthology-ed-by-annaliza-bakri/