Listen to our latest podcast and follow us on Spotify:
ANAPHORA
If our eyes are windows to the soul, our ears are probably a neglected backdoor—rejuvenate them with Hao Yang and Jovan in this monthly podcast as they discuss all things literature amidst your daily commute or in the comfort of your home: including new releases, poetic themes, dramatic readings, and more.
EP 2: INSTAPOETRY
In our second episode of Anaphora, Hao Yang and Jovan are joined by poet Noonherd as they discuss a rising online phenomenon—’instapoetry’.
Featuring poems by Noonherd and Hao Yang, as well as @satirewrites and @implausiette on Instagram.
Featured poems in this episode
Valorisation
Everybody is exercising. Now every body must exercise.
No! Capitulated, as expected. Grabbed the bar and let hang
the sorry weight of existence. Like a pig in an abattoir. Face
pulled as if resisting torture. It is worth it. Feel the burn.
Like char siu on a rack. Ripped, dripping under the spotlight.
Hooked to sweat. It is very worth it. A pig can be valorised
from head to toe. First it needs to hang. Hang. Be like the
metal that never thinks to whine. Be extension of hook. The
pink in your wrists is proper. It is porcine resistance. You
will be in the pink of health. Soon you will be on posters and
packaging. Why are you squealing in the face of change. It is
a beautiful human face. It wants the best of you.
Hao Yang
anima
I am in love with masculine things. The
deep siren call over the radio or
the phone, a sliver of toned muscle
or the puff of a chest, I am in love with
bulk and broad, the beat and the bass
I am in love with feminine things
one sleek curl of a hair, slightly shy
eyes damp and downcast, rounded over
the curve of a face, the bat of a lash
I am transfixed by the jingle of rings
I am in love with things that squeak
a sibilant melody - oh, fuck me -
I am in love with things that speak
@implausiette
chasing moonbeams
you’ve been three years
so pull apart the seams of my clothing,
manoeuvre through my ribcage
and nestle yourself next to my heart
so climb inside my mind
and rearrange the chamber
replace the coffee book tables
with handwritten letters
strewn across the room
or i could
just
say
i
missed you
but where’s the fun in a forced admission?
like a pill hard to swallow,
it burns all the way down my throat
you think you know someone until you don’t,
i’m caught in the middle of a lovefest
feeling the tendrils of an inferiority complex
wrap round and round my lungs
until the air i expel comes out in halting puffs
i should’ve known,
all this time you were gone,
in misty air laced with trepidation,
still waters run the deepest
and the deepest waters
hide the most tempting sirens
in the time you were gone,
i chased moonbeams the shape of you
and in unwritten letters,
your absence echoed achingly
@satirewrites
on his eighteenth birthday
to step on eggshells, an egg must
have exploded—willingly or not. it must have
some element of violence lining
its fragmentation, some deliberateness
that justifies its putrid, childhood scent.
in this case, let’s say he turned eighteen today.
to commemorate this, his friends smashed
an egg on his head, delighting in the way
yolk ran down his temple like a gunshot wound.
there was no malice, but it was not right either.
but his smile—it was runny and soft,
a child’s wobbling first attempt at a sunny-side up.
there’s your violence.
the eggshells lay on the ground pathetically. later,
i saw him step on them. it was heartbreaking how
gently he rested his weight, just to see
if they were alright—a love tap, if you will.
then, he picked them up individually,
making sure the sharp ends rested
in his palm like penitence, like penance.
there’s your deliberateness.
to step on eggshells, the eggshells
should not consent. yet, i can’t help but think:
just this once, they would have probably been fine
with it. just this once, no one would be breaking anything
any more than it allowed.
he turned eighteen and an unborn embryo kissed
his face. it was only right for him to press it back
so gently, so gently.
Noonherd
Ep 1: Tea and krampus
Tide over the remainder of 2023 with hosts Hao Yang and Jovan as they discuss Christmas and each present a poem of their own to mark the end of the year!
Featured poems in this episode
Drinking Hot Ginger Tea with Winter Melon Syrup and Lotus Seeds on a Winter Night in Hanoi
Phố Hàng Mã
All seasons and tastes in a watery blur,
A trickle of time in a patinated cup;
Pale seeds of summer contain the neutral years
Like pebbles in a lake with an old sheen of light
Looking at us / Looking at them
Toadstools indulging in the slowness of being
While merchant boats drift leisurely by, and
Gander and geese honk urgently on…
Swallow the moon by drinking the well,
A month, a language, a roundness in the mouth;
Strange words as puffers in a place of no snow,
Or chattering seeds from flowering midnight suns;
Sentiment is brewed over seasons, over days;
A warm cup of tea is everything in the end.
Hao Yang
Takashimaya
Salut
the man in red pants and
boots has chopped himself up
scattered over the wood panelled floor
he told me to tell you
to find him as a dog seeks out crumbs
of fresh gingerbread
then he hung his fur coat, draped it
over me and I smell bits of beard
mixed with milk and cookies
you know they sing songs about him
one song tells us that he knows
if you sleep with one eye closed
or if you masturbate at night
it doesn’t matter, it all doesn’t matter
his rags remind me of coca cola
liquid death nectar, drink drink
and I’m happy
on the twenty-fourth we go to the shops
prices slashed like unwanted smut
but I want it, I want
santa to come down and kiss me
tell me to open my heart and my wallet
buy the same happiness for barbie
and ken, buy soju so I blackout drunk
in an office-white mall
while jingle bells plays on the speakers
but it’s distorted
it sounds like krampus lecturing me
on how I should live every day as if
it’s my last, because you never know
if you’ll choke on half a candy cane
at the end of the day
krampus is
just a man in a silicone mask
who scares kids
just as russell lee and mr midnight do
judge their books by their covers
I didn’t know gingerbread was spicy
I thought it would only taste like
the sweet dirt
they buried my favourite celebrities in
this christmas under the mistletoe
under the fireplace
under santa’s sleigh
under rudolph’s left nut
under the christmas tree
a tired elf sat
with a neat little bow on his silly head.
Jovan
PRODUCTIONS
sploosh! productions is a collaborative effort between sploosh! and Singapore-based writers to bring their works to life through the aural medium.
For the first wave of sploosh! productions, we put out an open call for poems and short stories to be recorded, produced, and then published on our podcast. After reviewing the proposals received, we shortlisted nor, Benedict Lim, and Amanda Ruiqinq Flynn, who then recorded a total of 3 poems and 4 short stories together with us. In an act of retrospective curation, we discovered a common theme that bound the respective texts together: longing. To long for someone or something is to strain, often silently and constantly, towards it, down the distance of desire, a path with no end. Whether it is nor’s wistful lyric, Benedict’s sequences of heartache and lovelessness, or Amanda’s quiet yearning, each text takes us down that winding path that stretches and stretches from the heart and out into the open.
nor
“prayer for the (un)familiar, wish we __ in the 2000s and another grandpa poem situate themselves between fantasy and heartbreak, melodramatic what ifs, and the growing pains and joys of being twenty something.”
Amanda Ruiqing Flynn
“‘Yearning’ is a story about class, love, loss, and remembering. It delves into the role of a domestic helper in Singapore beyond the stereotypes we are sold.”
Benedict Lim
“Even in a city that is commonly regarded as a Southeast Asian ideal, queer migrants continue to wrestle between their sense of home, their ambitions, and familial and societal expectations.”
INTERVIEWS
Conversations with Singaporean writers grounded in a sensitive reading of their work and life, with the goal of shedding light on the minutiae of craft, general philosophies of aesthetics, and universal questions of living.
AMANDA CHONG
CYRIL WONG
THEOPHILUS KWEK
Topics: Reading and Writing, Publishing in the UK and in Singapore, State of Anglophone Writing in Singapore, Red and Green Flags in Poetry
TSE HAO GUANG
DARYL LIM
KRISTIAN-MARC JAMES PAUL and MYSARA ALJARU
ROBERT YEO
HIGHLIGHTS
Some recordings that were a delight to record and equally a delight to listen to.