EyeEye on on the the World World BaringBaring SolesSoles CREATIVE ARTS PROGRAMME SINGAPORE EyeEye on on the the World World BaringBaring SolesSoles Yong Shu Hoong Grace Koh Lim Siew Yea Celena Oon Editors Copyright © The Authors 2012 EYE ON THE WORLD: Journeying Home 2009 EYE ON THE WORLD: Word Weavers, World Makers 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, EYE ON THE WORLD: Winnowing Memories 2011 stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without Published by the Gifted Education Branch the prior permission of the authors and the designer. Ministry of Education Eye on the World: Baring Soles 51 Grange Road, Blk 1, #01-09 Singapore 249564 ISBN Eye on the World: Baring Soles is the 21st publication of the Creative Arts Programme under the General Series Title: Eye on the World. The Creative Arts Programme is jointly organised by the Gifted Education Branch, Ministry of Education, Singapore and the University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore. There was no publication in 2004. The other publications are: EYE ON THE WORLD: The Writer’s Response 1991 EYE ON THE WORLD: Changing Landscapes 1992 EYE ON THE WORLD: Bridging Worlds 1993 EYE ON THE WORLD: Making Waves 1994 EYE ON THE WORLD: Envisioning Communities 1995 EYE ON THE WORLD: Crossing Boundaries 1996 EYE ON THE WORLD: Celebrating Diversity 1997 EYE ON THE WORLD: Imprinting the Journey 1998 EYE ON THE WORLD: Romancing the Millennium 1999 EYE ON THE WORLD: Remembering Tomorrow 2000 EYE ON THE WORLD: Beyond Beginnings 2001 EYE ON THE WORLD: Engaging the Other 2002 EYE ON THE WORLD: Engaging Ourselves 2003 EYE ON THE WORLD: The Past as Future 2005 EYE ON THE WORLD: Re-making Language 2006 EYE ON THE WORLD: Wiring Heartlands 2007 EYE ON THE WORLD: Healing Silence 2008 DEDICATION Young artists are never alone in their quest for excellence in their art. Their mentors are their guiding force and sources of inspiration. This publication is dedicated to the following mentors, in appreciation of their guidance of the Creative Arts Programme Mentorship Attachment students: Zafar Anjum Meira Chand Chow Teck Seng Chua Chee Lay Dave Chua Terence Heng Ho Poh Fun Koh Xin Tian Aaron Lee Jeffrey Lim Sui Yin Josephine Chia Nicholas Liu Aaron Maniam Chris Mooney-Singh Marc Daniel Nair Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng Paul Tan Angeline Yap Yong Shu Hoong CONTENTS CONTENTS Foreword xvii Contributors xx Acknowledgements xxii CAP MENTORSHIP PUPILS English Poetry (Junior College) Khoo Wu Shaun silence in the passing 3 lights 5 friendship and love 6 Koh Jia Ren 家人 (Family) 7 In memory of the snail who spoke to me 10 aletheia 12 An ex-lover’s wake 14 Burgeoning 16 Lee Xiu Yi Eunice Forever 17 Lamb in the fold 19 In retrospect 20 Towards midnight 22 Loke Wen Hao Kenny Bridging years 23 Airports 24 Winter escapade 26 ix CONTENTS CONTENTS Toh Hui Ran Sandra Tan Baring Soles 27 Death of a Reason 48 The Tiger’s Nest 28 keeping time for the world 49 Dry Sentiment 29 strangers in a hospital lift 51 It’s been a long time, since I last saw you 30 When the water came 52 English Poetry (Secondary School) Joanelle Toh Yu Ling 12 53 Ho Kai Ling Phyllis exit wounds 56 The Age of Waiting 31 you are a hotel room 57 Paper Offerings 32 A euphemism for the inevitable 58 A Subject of Old 33 non-conversations in the kitchen 59 some days you just feel like that 34 A Butterfly Pays Respect 35 Nicholas Wong Zhi Feng Critic 36 the feather room 60 A dead bird weighs very little 62 Ho Yarn Yu Hilary princess of china 63 Say This Out Loud 37 shutter 65 火 (Fire) 38 Cherished Unawareness 39 English Poetry (CAP Alumni) Ode to a Lost Pup 40 Remains of a City 41 Maria Chung Su-Yin Faith-test 66 Hoh Yi Hui If You Have A Dream 43 Theophilus Kwek Analysis 68 Lee Shu Yu 45 Enoch 70 comfort 46 玉 (Jade) Daniel Lye Baring Soles 72 Jonathan Neo Hsien Ming The Bund 47 Cheryl Tan City Traffic 74 x xi CONTENTS CONTENTS Marylyn Tan Yeo Wen Xin The Bokononist Plays Footsy 75 Running 146 The Nimble Bark 152 English Prose (Junior College) English Prose (Secondary School) Clarilyn Khoo En Ping Between Seabed and Sky 79 Darren Chen Zhi Jie In Surfeit of Sweetness 84 Thump 158 Mirror 86 Just Like The Movies 162 Of Kindly Demons 167 Lam Ka Hei Deborah One-eyed Men in the Kingdom of the Blind 90 Thaddea Chua Yun Fang Boy 98 Stars and Leprechauns 173 When Worlds Apart Clash 176 Liow Wei Yuan Freedom 180 The Shore 102 Oleander 105 Gavin Ezra Goh Shao Xian Shoo 109 Human Rights by the Sword 184 Loh Hui Qing Sheralyn Freya Ho Choy Ying One for Every Centimetre 113 Dulce Et Decorum Est 201 Seeking Shadows 118 The Space Between Heartbearts 205 This Is Not About You 123 What Once Was And Never Will Be 210 Grace Ng Mei Fong Lim Ao Jun Joel The Professional 127 Colours in Greyscale 216 Water Treads and Aquarunners 131 Firecrackers 220 The One-Man Orchestra 135 The Whispering Wheels 224 Wong Yong Li Liu Fangzhou I Want To Be Thin 138 Ensky 228 Nothing Much Left 142 Fernweh 232 Highway and Horizon 237 xii xiii CONTENTS CONTENTS Mahadevan Aparna Crystal Lua Xin Yi Little Ralph From The Swimming Pool 241 Life Insurance 314 Singalorean 245 Mock Yong-Jie Aidan Clara Ong Wei Ling 1945, Away Across The Sea 316 Ephemeral 250 The Birth Of Venus 253 English Play (Junior College) Darryl Ong Ming En Lim Ye Jun Glass Of Water 259 The Corpse 323 The Painter 262 Outflown 265 Yustynn Panicker When Pigs Fly 349 Tejala Rao Escape From Mordor 366 Gramophone 268 Haunted 274 English Play (Secondary School) Tng Hui En Faith Tan Wei Ying Kate Down The Aisle 279 The Death Code 372 Snow Ghosts 284 Rising Hope 381 Flawless 289 Shayna Toh Tien Hsia Austin Zheng Zeyuan All The World’s A Stage 388 Encirclement 294 The Importance Of Your Audience 300 Chinese Poetry (Secondary School) English Prose (CAP Alumni) Wu Yu Tzu 吳宇慈 Miriam Cheong Gek Lui 外套 401 She Swears It’s Allegorical 305 灰色地带 403 Kelly Chng Wei Ni 光着脚 In Between Here and Tomorrow 308 405 追求 407 xiv xv CONTENTS FOREWORD Chinese Prose (Secondary School) The metaphor of “groundedness” is an old one. For centuries, “grounded” has been used for ideas which are firmly Wang Ruoni 王若霓 established, and for people who are either expert in an area of 光着脚丫 408 knowledge or secure in their personal lives. There's a whole family of such metaphors. We talk of ideas and people being 母亲的幸福 410 “rooted”, “anchored”, “well founded”, even “earthed”. Lu Jin Yao 卢金瑶 All these metaphors have a common basis. (And “basis” 桥 413 itself belongs to the same family!) They are concerned with the contact between a person and the environment, between the 茉莉知我心 416 abstract and the concrete. They exploit and articulate the meeting Chinese Prose (CAP Alumni) of the intellectual, emotional or spiritual with the physical. At first sight, this year's CAP topic seems slightly Lin Yao 林瑶 idiosyncratic. A common phrase is given an uncommon meaning 两颗心的距离 419 by a pun. Normally, we think of baring “souls”, not “soles”. But the topic works. Indeed, closer consideration shows it to be both very provocative and very rich. Our young writers have been invited to think about “groundedness”. Not the familiar metaphor of established knowledge or secure expertise, but something more difficult and vexing than that. They have been called on to consider the ancient puzzle of the relation between ethereal and material. They have been pushed to question the connection between “soul” and “sole”, between interior experience and external world. They have been asked to ponder and articulate the point at which a person touches the ground. xvi xvii There was a wide range of responses to the invitation, and emerge, but the only knowledge we're secure of at the end is that many of the best of them are included in this volume. All cannot S is a story-teller and the facts might all be part of his fiction- be mentioned here, but it's worth considering just a few varied making. Where, when, what? The questions of the physical world examples. and so-called hard reality elude answers in this story. One of the pieces which deals most explicitly with the Among the mysteries of human existence are the relations implications of the topic is Lee Shu Yu's “comfort”. The poem of soul (if it exists) to body, and of body to world. Our interior meditates on the relations between the physical comforts of a soft experience is intellectual and emotional. We seek explanations bed and a good night's sleep and the mental comforts of memory and we seek meaning. But we live in the bodies of animals in a and security. The latter seems to trump the former, but both are physical world. Our internal lives are shaped by external objects, important. acting on us through physical senses. Some texts use the topic to explore family ties. Koh Jia The poems and prose pieces in this volume explore that Ren's, 家人(“Family”), is about the changing relationship between puzzle with energy, wit and imagination. In doing so, they a mother and her son, as the son grows up and grows away.