Episode 313: The Library Is My New Best Friend!

Today, while I was on my way to church for singing practice, I suddenly had an idea for my next poem. The central image is going to feature one of my worst habits: taking my handphone out and pretending to check a non-existent SMS. I promise that the poem's going to be better than it sounds right now. Was at the library again, this time in Queenstown. Come to think of it, I've been going to the library so often that I haven't actually read anything for next year's modules. I've finished reading Iambus, The Enclosure Of Love and Means To An End, all by Toh Hsien Min. You can definitely see a stylistic evolution, moving away from strict rhymes in his first collection, to looser, more relaxed forms in the subsequent collections. My next comment is going to sound completely facetious, but I'm being quite serious when I say that I like how many of his poems are fairly lengthy. You just don't get that very often in contemporary Singaporean poetry. Not that length necessarily correlated with quality, but after reading some Singaporean poetry, I'm left wondering if all the poet meant to give me was a couple of images that don't seem to add up to something more. I suppose the word I'm looking for shouldn't be 'length', but rather 'density'. I'm suddenly very tempted to buy his three collections, should I see them in a bookstore.

As for the rest of the books I've been discovering at various libraries in Singapore, I will blog about them as and when I get around to actually reading them. I have this terrible habit of borrowing books and then finding myself incapable of sitting down to concentrate on them. Am getting slightly better at it now though, so that's a good sign. I've just finished Look At My Striped Shirt! This is a somewhat amusing read from the people at ThePhatPhree.com. I had to say 'somewhat' because it starts out a real hoot, but given the brand of humour being employed, there's only so much you can take before it all becomes somewhat repetitive. The tagline, 'Target. Observe. Ridicule.' is pretty much a summation of the book's purpose, in which it succeeds, for better or worse. By the way, my dad is slightly concerned that I bought The 48 Laws Of Power. It's not like I'm suddenly out to take over the world or anything! I just thought it would be, you know, useful. That and the historical anecdotes make for rather interesting reading. Next book I'm cracking open is that book of Alexander Kluge short stories I was blogging about yesterday. After that, time for some more poetry, I think. At some point in the coming week, I'm going to edit my bits of the musical script.