7th Singapore Poetry Contest Results
We are very pleased to announce the results of the 7th Singapore Poetry Contest. In conjunction with our Gaudy Boy launch of Monique Truong’s delicious novel The Sweetest Fruits now out in Singapore and Malaysia, this year’s contest had the novel’s title for its theme. Open to everyone, the contest was judged by Singapore Literature Prize winner, Marylyn Tan. Winners receive a cash prize, publication, and a signed copy of The Sweetest Fruits if they live in Singapore and Malaysia.
We received a total of 157 poems. The entries came from 14 countries around the world. Singapore leads with 71 entries, followed by Nigeria 16, the US 16, the Philippines 15, India 10, the UK 9, South Korea 4, the UAE 4, Canada 3, Malaysia 3, the Netherlands 2, Spain 1, Switzerland 1, Taiwan 1, and 1 with no address. Because of the high quality of the entries, our judge decided to award two Honorable Mentions for exemplary work, in addition to the top three winners.
First prize (USD100) goes to “The Purpose of Fruit” by Jack Xi.
Second prize (USD50) goes to “Origin Story” by Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr..
Third Prize (USD30) goes to “Durian Blossoms” by Ismim Putera.
Honorable Mention (USD25) goes to “specimen study” by Chin Lin Gan.
Honorable Mention (USD25) goes to "Merienda with My Mother Reminds Me of a Legend" by Misha Rallonza.
Congratulations to the winners! Enjoy their poems below. The Singapore Poetry Contest will return in 2022.
First Prize
The Purpose of Fruit
By Jack Xi
You told me there was a fork in your past.
I picture you distant, unclipping plastic
off all the babies, hand pressed to incubators
like fevered foreheads: the lights switch,
and you’re staring instead at rays
splayed through microns of green. There are bulbs
swelling through the gel that you bless, bowing:
an oath of steady wood, orchards devout
past drought. Instead we’re in your car
under the passing slant of the rays of roadside
green. After discussing punctured young guts,
you ask if God told me to do plant science.
Surely my prayers bore fruit? No: black seeds
in the guts of an ape, splayed out over
highway. I think of your papayas
growing whole past our rooms: seeds repeating
pith in marred degrees. I see us
by a cartoonish tree: a thick swollen jackfruit
with a house’s girth, dark hidden acreages
of flesh. My hand pressed to seedless skin
as its tree bends above us, a failed trebuchet.
I say mildly, “I’ll look it up later.” You sigh,
waiting for the tree to snap back up.
You are waiting for erupting seeds,
for flesh that gives under forks. You are waiting
for fruit that is whole as Christ’s nose
and a truth you suspect is in drought.
I hunt through my stomach, gouge out dark
pearls, staring: meiosis mars pasts
but I see your hand on my head through old fevers,
us chuckling over my uneven-cut melons.
I wait for you to soften
and to say
“Okay.”
Judge’s comment: Sensual and erotic, yet fully mired in the banality of sustaining life, “The Purpose of Fruit” engages with the reproductive in both human and plant, playing on a lyrical inventiveness (“fruit that is whole as Christ's nose/ and a truth you suspect is in drought”) that hooks and draws, while sustaining a delightful note of tension throughout to culminate in a gentle coming-to-rest after wrestling with unwieldy emotions and cresting pasts.
Jack Xi (they/he) is a queer Singaporean poet. A member of the writing collective /Stop@BadEndRhymes (stylized /s@ber), they can be found on WordPress under “jackxisg.wordpress.com.” Jack’s been published in OF ZOOS, Wyvern Lit, Perverse, Freeze Ray, and several Singaporean anthologies.
Second Prize
Origin Story
By Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr..
How can I remember being
unnamed? My language
was light and I had
no face. The air
fed me with secrets.
The sun was doggedly
insistent. I thirsted
for rain, its intermittent
attention. I was patient:
both noun
and description.
I endured birds,
their tiresome
chatter.
Then ripening, my flesh
made me visible. Love
wormed itself into my body.
What is a fruit if not
a seed’s vessel? Here
I am, something
that aches to be eaten.
That rots and poisons.
Something studded
with thorns.
Judge’s comment: “Origin Story” is a gorgeous, minimal, restrained poem with high attention paid to pacing, with the result sylphlike and coiling, flirting with both danger and beauty. This poem pivots on a slow, deliberate drip (“my flesh/ made me visible”... “Love/ wormed itself into my body”), creating a palpable sense of being envulnerabled, of desiring, yet revulsing, the thought of being consumed.
Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr. (he/him) is the author of Tangere (University of the Philippines Press, 2021) and Aria and Trumpet Flourish (Math Paper Press, 2018). He is also the editor of A/PART: An Anthology of Queer Southeast Asian Poetry in the Pandemic, featured in the Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival 2021.
Third Prize
Durian Blossoms
By Ismim Putera
When I first met him
he was gathering durian blossoms
in the orchard in Sri Aman
with his left hand
right hand still in Singapore
feeding his ailing father
a tattoo of three blue-green magpies
nested around his wrist
at noon he sang flowery songs to them
and the birds adorned him
his right eye glittered
like an icy comet at dusk
and the whiff of monsoon rain
filled the courtyard as he walked in—
at nightfall
when he hugged me
we would drench in downpour
his meaty odour was psychedelic
like a stir-fried honeyed tempoyak
his chest was a block of woody metal
weighing my ferromagnetic bones down
keruing oil waxed his lips
and behind the disjointed banana leaves
two men kissing quietly like snails—
in the orchard, he erected his thorns
repelling ghosts and ghouls
rattan vines entwined his arms like veins
and he spoke runes of the rainforest
he allowed the star to tan his back
outlining rows of libidinous glyphs
we frolicked on the forest floor like tigers
the trees rained down their blessings
on us—celebrating our youthfulness
he opened a Musang King single-handedly
we nibbled the golden flesh—
citrous sweetness rolled into our dreams
our body glowed coppery yellow
coppery yellow
Judge’s comment: The tactility and viscerality of “Durian Blossoms” is its strongest suit—the linguistic inventiveness of the metaphors (“meaty odour psychedelic,” “stir-fried honeyed tempoyak”) plays lovely with the softer notes of secretive intimacy (“two men kissing quietly like snails”), blending like a multilayered scent that builds upon itself.
Ismim Putera (he/him) is the author of the poetry chapbook Tide of Time (Mug and Paper Publishing, 2021). His works can be found in many online journals
and are forthcoming in To Let the Light In poetry anthology (Sing Lit station) and Tapestry of Colours: Stories from Asia.
Honorable Mention
specimen study
By Chin Lin Gan
remember the unknown fruit, the grouting-ground genus
always evasive, side corner smear of mynah beak, waxing
sticky gnomon of nameless berry, bulbous bulbul food
smashed into black born blue or bloodred pigment
like the ghost stutter of a boil. white custard with wicked black seeds
smashed where it fell, horrified at itself with its garrulous meat, superfluous
nature always secondary to common understanding.
beneath the palms the anonymous pomegranates marinate in
the pulp of their fall, the aches and smears of postripe heartbreak flesh
that only ants could love. none of the streetside stragglers have mouths
which recognise their names, their histories, their sunbaked blood
fermenting perpetual anon, the decay of ghostly taxonomy that dream still:
of breakfast plates
of a heartfelt communion
Judge’s comment: “specimen study” opens with an unknowing and coalesces into a longing for communion. The alien premise of garrulous meat makes the familiar visceral and violent. The gore and richness of fruits decaying with flesh '“that only ants could love” serves to make the forgotten real, engaging with an history and taxonomy that speaks to archival as a language of love.
Chin Lin Gan (she/her) is a writer, illustrator and food creator. Her creative work can be found on Instagram @tumblinbumblincrumblincookie. Her work has been screened at SGIFF and published in Afterglobe, Bake & Celebrate, and The White Book. She is currently studying English & Related Literatures at the University of York.
Honorable Mention
Merienda with My Mother Reminds Me of a Legend
By Misha Rallonza
When I wasn’t looking I happened to pour boiling water over
the back of my hand, so I watched in fascination as it ripened
into the same shade of pink as the pomelo
a daughter shared with her mother over the
dining table later that vivid afternoon:
I,
sweating down the roots of my hair bit into the fruit,
trickling juice against cold bare teeth when she told
me to smear toothpaste across the burn,
dizzy on the sting of the heat added salt to the sweet
so that it fizzed sweeter when I blew on the burn,
refused to tell her that I could see through the door
when she smashed her favorite mug against the floor
earlier that morning,
and I,
trying to taste two flavors at the same time:
salty citrus, and warm honey; like chewing into
tender skin after boiling water had run over it
had suddenly recalled the creation myth of the pomelo:
a child who lost both his parents in the same night,
could not stop crying until his several tears became
the pulp of the sweetest fruit that his village had
ever bitten into,
and I,
wishing she would tell me what was going on
as her hands shook in place, as she looked at all of my scars and
pledged to reflect them across her own skin if I ever got hurt again,
wondered why she never cried the way I could
—a ceaseless drizzling of tears down my neck until
they tasted sweet—as she told me never to cry at all,
pressed salt into a wedge of pomelo, and handed it over
for her to eat.
Judge’s comment: This poem's pleasures rest in the tactility and viscerality of injury and consumption, underscored by the themes of mother-daughter relations. Its strengths lie in its attentions to lyricality and lightness, ending on a gustatorially satisfying note.
Misha Rallonza is a Filipino high-school graduate from Miriam College High School. She was the literature editor of her school’s publication, The Magnificat, and has a deep affinity for poetry. When not writing, she is either painting her face, or studying a new language.
Copyright Jon Gresham. All rights reserved. www.igloomelts.com