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Bionote: Alvin Pang, PhD, is an internationally active poet and editor from Singapore. His writings have been translated into more than twenty languages worldwide. A 2022 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and 2022 Dublin Literary Award judge, he is Adjunct Professor of RMIT University. Featured in the Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English, his recent books include What Happened: Poems 1997–2017 (2017), Uninterrupted time (2019), Det som ger oss våra namn (2022), and Diaphanous, co-written with the T.S.Eliot award-winning British poet George Szirtes (2023).
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
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TMYS 1: Please tell us about the SANTA of your life. Maybe a person who felt like Santa or a phase, a day, an event, a moment from your childhood when innocent wishes seemed granted.
Alvin:
I would have to highlight my friend, mentor and publisher Mr. Fong, who came across my work when I was just starting out and looking for a way to get my writing out in public---which is a daunting task for any budding writer. He was so sincerely taken by it that he decided to not only publish it but to create a brand-new publishing label, Ethos Books, with my book as one of the inaugural titles. We have continued to work together on many projects in the decades since, and his kindness, wisdom and generosity continue to inspire me.
TMYS 2: Do you think your growing up in the company of grandparents has a role to play in the person you have become today? If yes, please tell us about their touch points in your life and how you resemble them in looks, habits, tastes, preferences or otherwise.
Alvin:
Yes! I grew up speaking both English and my grandparents’ languages, which are regional tongues we were discouraged from speaking in the formal school system. It was through these tongues, and through their folktales and folk verses, that I acquired the cadences of language that later became my instrument, my poetry. The dishes they used to cook at home remain my comfort food: in my case, Teochew and Cantonese homemade fare. And of course, I was given my Chinese name, Khee Meng, by my grandfather. It means “enlightenment”. Once, when I was young, I slipped after a bath and fell on my head, and started bleeding. My grandfather was so concerned he carried me on his back all the way to a nearby hospital to get treated. My own experience suggests that while parents tell us how we ought to be in life, grandparents show us how to be; how one is.
TMYS 3: During your growing up years, what aspect of poetry appealed to you most? Which poets (or poems) did you go back to again and again? Please tell us about your first poetry.
Alvin:
I was most taken by the musicality of poems: which of course I first experienced as nursery rhymes and songs, not as words on a page. That only came later in school. In my first literature lesson, we were asked to compare two poems about the sea: Tennyson’s “Break Break Break” and another anonymously authored poem about the tropical seaside, full of balmy breezes and coconut trees. I enjoyed both poems, but also felt that my own sense of the sea, the equatorial sea of urban Singapore, was not visible in either poem. So, when I went home I typed up my own rhyming poem on my parent’s typewriter. “The Sea” was my very first poem, and I still have it!
TMYS 4: Today when you are writing your own books of poetry, do you still need other poets for emotional support? Do poets learn from each other or poetic expressions are personal?
Alvin:
Writing is conversational; it is also a confluence of many streams. Our histories, our habits, our inclinations, our chance encounters, our intentions----all of these come together to provide material we might fashion something from. The more I read good poetry, the more I want to write. I suppose that is a kind of emotional support --- the company we keep gives us comfort, inspiration, courage, but also an idea of what only we can do that others cannot or have not done. We can only be original; what we contribute is new only in relation to what others have accomplished. Reading others makes me want to think about what others have not expressed. To try to answer unanswered questions. What we learn from one another might be ways to answer the questions we have about life and the world around us, but it is most meaningful when we find our own ways of expressing these. Because, if someone else has said something already, why repeat it---unless it is to improve it in some way? At the same time, it is good to know that we share many of the same questions as our fellow human beings across space and time; that we are not alone in longing and wondering. So, there is also empathy to be found in reading and writing.
TMYS 5: Is there a certain kind of event that inspires poetry in you? For example, writers find their words in issues related to nature or women or wars and suchlike. You haven’t stuck to a particular genre. What kind of stimulation do you creatively respond to?
Alvin:
I am most moved by surprise, or puzzlement. Sometimes it is anger that moves me. All these have in common the need to move in relation to a question: to figure out what I think about a particular situation that has stumped me (either in a good or a negative way). It is perhaps easy to have a first impression; writing is my way of thinking beyond those first impressions; to have second thoughts and third thoughts. To think back and think again, and then seeing where it leads me. Usually, there has to be a certain music or rhythmic or visual force at work as well. So writing is a kind of re-thinking-as-dancing.
TMYS 6: Some writers create their best in silence. Some prefer the chaos. What is your ideal writing environment? Do you manage to get that around yourself when you need or you adjust with the surroundings?
Alvin:
I’ve tried both, and realized I need stimulation paired with quiet. I’ve been to writing retreats where I’ve been entirely secluded, and while I was able to work on things I had to complete, it was difficult to begin anything new. My ideal rhythm of writing would be to take frequent breaks between phases: to sit and write quietly, and then perhaps to walk a bit and stretch my body and curiosity, and then sit and read, and so on. I prefer to do this alone, while knowing there are friends around, I could bounce ideas off from time to time. Of course, the world is seldom as accommodating of this irregular rhythm of work: it wants us to sit still and conform to a fixed schedule every day! I could never do that: whether at work or at play --- and I consider my writing to be both.
TMYS 7: Creative writing is never complete. The writer always goes back and finds a scope for improvement. How or at what stage do you decide that a particular piece is final and ready to go? Among your writing, which poem is your personal favourite and why?
Alvin:
One of my doctoral ideas is this concept of the “zim”, a kind of genreless genre. We often worry too much about what form a particular piece of writing takes, to the point where we lose track of the energy and inspiration that made us want to write in the first place. Zim is about keeping one’s writing free and loose; in ongoing draft form. Later, some aspect of it can be branched out as an essay, a poem, a Facebook post and so on, but the original idea remains fluid and alive in the zim draft, that keeps all versions, all notes, together; like a jotter book dedicated to one writing idea. And then a piece is “finished” only where required by the needs at hand: homework deadlines, publication deadlines and so on. This frees me up to continue to play with the draft work even after a version of it has gone to print. One idea can spawn many “child” versions in this way, and each might be polished to the needs of a particular project, but there need not be only ONE final version.
And for that reason, it’s difficult to pick a single favourite poem of mine: it would be like picking from among one’s many children! I suppose “Candles”, which is written in the Singaporean Colloquial English (or what we call Singlish) counts as a favourite, because it is the first time, I was able to retell a true family tale in a voice that felt like home.
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
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An interview by Gennia Nuh for #TellMeYourStory, under the Story Project 11 themed on Letters from Santa.