Winners of the 10th Singapore Poetry Contest
We’re very pleased to announce the results of the 10th annual Singapore Poetry Contest. In conjunction with our launch of Jeddie Sophronius’ Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize Winner, Interrogation Records, this year’s contest looked for poems that used the word “interrogation” in imaginative ways. Poems should also possess overall excellence, of course. Open to all, the contest was judged by Jeddie Sophronius. Winners receive a cash prize and publication in SUSPECT.
We received a total of 244 poems, a drop from last year’s 600 poems, but comparable to the 245 poems the year before last. Apparently it’s easier to write about snails than about interrogation! This year’s entries came from 33 countries from around the world, with the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Hungary, Iran, Kuwait, Lithuania, Mauritania, Nepal, Norway, Portugal, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkmenistan making a first appearance in this contest.
The United States leads again with 61 poems (NY 15, CA 15, FL 5, MI 5, WA 4, OH 3, IL 2, MO 2, MS 2, TX 2, VA 2, HI 1, OR 1, IA 1), followed by Singapore 37, India 26, Nigeria 26, the Philippines 16, Ghana 9, South Africa 7, the United Kingdom 7, Australia 6, Indonesia 5, Bangladesh 3, Canada 3, the Dominican Republic 3, Norway 3, Pakistan 3, Hong Kong 2, Japan 2, Nepal 2, the Czech Republic 1, Eswatini 1, Germany 1, Hungary 1, Iran 1, Kenya 1, Kuwait 1, Mauritania 1, Lithuania 1, New Zealand 1, Portugal 1, Thailand 1, Tunisia 1, Turkmenistan 1, and Uganda 1 (unknown countries 7).
First Prize (USD300) goes to “Fairy-cherry,” by Jie Cohen.
Second Prize (USD200) goes to “Human Resources,” by Dawn Angelicca Barcelona.
Third Prize (USD100) goes to “Interrogation of the Self,” by Ashish Kumar Singh.
Congratulations to the winners! Enjoy their poems and the judge’s comments below. The Singapore Poetry Contest will return in 2025.
Ethan Sim - Crimson Hour (2023), Acrylic on Canvas, 36” x 48”
Image description: The painting, rendered in vivid colors, depicts a turquoise-haired woman sitting on a chair in the foreground. In the background are traditional, pagoda-like buildings and metropolitan skyscrapers against a bright-orange sky. An airplane in the sky leaves a bright-yellow trail behind it. Abstract clouds in blue and yellow spiral around the airplane. To the left of the image, a panel depicts traditional and modern elements, such as a vase with yellow flowers, mushrooms, vehicles, and more.
First Prize
Fairy-cherry
By Jie Cohen
I stepped up to the passport control desk and said “hello!”
My confidence in the situation was, at best, a sick shade of red,
and the blood rushed to my head like a diving Peregrine Falcon—
its prey in the scope of its eye, or like a hungry ghost
coming back to give me the interrogation
about why I didn’t burn the money—now my face is a cherry.
My hair is currently colored in the fashion of a red-cherry
which does not help when the control officer says “hello…”
and reaches for my passport, preparing her interrogation—
I am lucky my passport color is blue—not envy-green or commie-red,
which is such a depressing thought, as though any other nation is a ghost.
When she looks at me again it is with the eyes of that falcon.
“This is your passport?” asks the falcon,
and I cycle through colors of despair, blue to violet to scorching cherry—
The old passport picture, before my transition, the ghost
on the page staring at the falcon and saying “hello!”
to her—I stare at the Georgian flag in the corner, white and red.
I respond yes, it is me! And tumble into her interrogation.
She delights for a while on the exquisite promise of prolonged interrogation,
and she leans close to my passport, holds it up, looks at me and the falcon
does not see a glamor queen in black eyeliner with cherry-red
hair, she is comparing nine years to now and reaches her for phone, lips cherry-
red and parting, my lips are parting as I breathe deep and slow, she says: “Hello?
We have a situation, please come,” and suddenly I am a ghost.
—But that is easy, I am better at inhabiting the body of a ghost
than enduring such needless and invasive interrogation.
Two more falcons fly to the scene and I manage to breathe a soft “hello.”
They look at my passport: “Remove your glasses, show your forehead” says the Falcon.
I comply, because I am a transsexual and what else should I do? I cannot pop my cherry
for being violently detained—in Georgia on a work trip—I blush into my red.
The falcons come to me with measuring tools, they prod with their red-
long nails at my face, trying to humiliate or validate me against the ghost.
In my mind I have submerged into the depths of a Georgian wine mulled with cherry.
After many more minutes of torture, when they realize they must conclude the interrogation
for lack of any evidence to bar me from the country, the passport-falcon
stamps my page and she leers as I enter and says in a sweet voice: “Hello!”
When I get to the bathroom, I croak “hello…” to my face in the mirror, interrogating
my identity—the ghost lives in my passport, the red lives in my glamorous hair.
Yes, it is me! And the falcons cannot peck away the pit of this fairy-cherry.
Judge’s Comment: “fairy-cherry” surpasses what one would normally expect from a sestina. What begins as a dehumanizing experience at passport control—where the speaker’s appearance undergoes scrutiny against their old passport photo—turns into a critical and lyrical examination of the interrogation itself. In this exchange, the poem bounces beautifully, making music as it goes, despite the weight of the structural constraints associated with such a strict setting. The stiff and repetitive form of the sestina serves as a brilliant vehicle, alluding to the rigidity of borders and bearing the ghost of one’s past identity, the echoes of the end-words in the stanzas. I am left in awe witnessing a powerful transformation from what originated as distress into a demonstration of poetic prowess.
婕 Jie V Cohen is a mixed, intersex writer whose work has been recognized in or is forthcoming in the Ex-Puritan, The Minnesota Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Strange Horizons, The Foundationalist, Nat-Brut, Singapore Unbound, Poets.org, and others. Their poem THE FUTURE received a Best of the Net award in 2023. They currently live and teach British Literature and Creative Writing in Central Asia.
Ethan Sim - My Life So Far (2023), Mixed Media
Image description: In the center of the bright-colored illustration, the body of the Statue of Liberty walks forward, holding its recognizable torch in hand. The Statue of Liberty steps off of a sand-brown building. To the left are mushroom shapes emerging from a red patch. Above it, separated by a horizontal neon-green wall that extends across the image, is a purple-toned image of a clock-tower in front of trees. In the bottom right corner, a human figure with their back turned towards us sits at a desk and types on a laptop. The figure and their desk is in a body of water. Towards the background are brown buildings and a car.
Second Prize
Human Resources
By Dawn Angelicca Barcelona
When my mother told me she and my sister were aliens,
I thought of little green men, the movie E.T. inside them.
Am I an alien too?
*
The definition of alien includes:
unnatural(ized) a hypothetical or fictional being (from another world) unauthorized
extraterrestrial (life) foreign national of any country at war with the host country
distasteful disturbing belonging to an/other outsider hostile
*
I hate interrogating a candidate at the end of a call:
Are you authorized
to work in the United States?
Then:
Will you now or in the future require sponsorship
to work in the United States?
The workflow, if yes:
1. Open “Recruiter Information for Visa Processes” document
2. Ask which one
3. Cross reference this visa matrix:
4. Open up the FAQ page, further interrogation:
5. Email HR, Legal, and Immigration necessary information and cc: the candidate
6. Proceed with the interview process as normal
*
Human Resources can refer to:
labor (relations) workforce recruitment policies
procedures human capital where violations are to be reported
development employee (relations) extracting perfect work retention
*
Check all that apply:
□ Are/Were you an alien?
□ Is/Was your mother an alien?
□ Is/Was your father an alien?
□ Can you submit evidence of your usefulness?
□ Do you authorize us to keep your passport for up to 90 days?
□ Do you have additional ID(s) you can carry on you at all times?
If yes, check all that apply:
□ Birth Certificate
□ Driver’s License
□ State-Issued Identification Card
□ Social Security Card
□ Do you love America?
□ Will you be faithful to America?
□ Do you plan to return to America?
□ Do you have plans to overthrow America(nness)?
*
for three months I carried my birth and baptismal certificates
creased and soiled in my wallet, while I monitored the progress
of my gold-embossed book, recounted my social security number,
crossed out each day until my flight until I became a foreign national
*
Threaded in the back of my passport A-3 (though I am no diplomat)
I signed a contract I couldn’t read
and received my Alien Registration Card
*
I practice with the little language I’ve learned after a 16-hour flight:
Have you been to Korea before?
I work here now
What is the purpose of your visit?
I work here now
Which hotel will you stay at for your visit?
I live here now
What is the duration of your stay in Korea?
I’m not sure yet
Where will you travel in Korea?
I have to work
How did you get this visa?
It was a lottery, a contest
and I was a lucky one
*
After 20 years, my sister’s crisp letter,
notebook paper with red and blue
inky, uppercase reminders:
DO YOUR BEST
AIM HIGH
IF YOU THINK YOU’RE ON TOP, DO MORE
NEVER STOP WORKING
BE GOOD
BE YOURSELF
before her signature:
you’re so lucky,
you were born an American citizen
& remember
mom worked too hard
to come here for you
to settle for mediocrity
so I leave
and leave
and pass
checkpoint(s)
and check
off boxes
and wait
to see my
status.
Judge’s Comment: Employing a structure that underlines the impersonal and discriminatory nature of the immigration process, “Human Resources” delves into the labyrinthine journey of employment for non-citizens in the United States. The poem turns bureaucratic language against the system that invented it, exposing layers of interrogation that extend beyond mere job qualifications, ranging from the candidates’ sense of belonging to the burden of their familial histories. We are left questioning the dichotomy of citizenship—between those who possess it and those who exist on the fringes, labeled as aliens.
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona is a Filipina-American poet from New Jersey. She is a winner of the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award (2022) and Epiphany’s Fresh Voices Fellowship (2023). She likes to dance, talk about mental health, and travel via public transportation.
Ethan Sim - The Long Layover (2021), Mixed Media
Image description: In the illustration, a human figure sits on the red benches of an airport lounge. The floor of the lounge is made up of bright-green and orange patterns. A duffel bag and a purple suitcase are placed next to the figure. The wall of the lounge, interrupted by large, semicircular glass windows, is blue-colored. A clock hangs on the wall. The human figure looks towards an airplane parked behind the large window. The background, which is entirely dark, suggests a night scene.
Third Prize
Interrogation of the Self
By Ashish Kumar Singh
At the age of 8, when asked for the first time,
Why do you act like a girl? I had nothing
but silence grinding my tongue.
One would believe I doubted what lay
between my legs—the simple proof that I too
belonged to their brotherhood—
though I did not. I knew what I was
and what I wasn’t with the surety of what
flowed in my veins. It wasn’t until
another boy on another day interrogated
who I was that doubt started to sprout
like seeds kept in a mud for a week.
And it grew into a sapling when,
from the circumference of the football field,
the sport’s sir yelled, Don’t run like a girl.
Friends laughed, and I laughed with them
because what else could I do with a body
I didn't know what to do with?
The more I tried, the more wild it got.
But I persevered since Papa always said,
Have faith, and you can do anything.
And that was one thing I always had.
Every night, I prayed with the same sincerity
as my mother. Every night, I drowned
my body in buckets of faith, slick like honey.
If gods were hiding, they hid like a light
behind a door. I searched and I searched
like a rat in a desert for water I was sure of.
At the age of 14, when doubt
was growing alongside like a younger sibling,
the biology teacher pointed to a picture
of a naked man as faint as faith had gotten
over the years and said, This
is what makes boys fall in love with a girl.
The pointer tapped the man’s groin making
girls giggle and boys blush.
Here was science proving I was not
of the same tribe as I have been so confident of.
Tell me, how should I have believed
what I was what I had made myself believe?
Because I loved, if love is what it was,
the boy a desk ahead. I loved him
with the devotion of a devotee—
only from afar. At night, when dark
surrounded our little house, I would lie awake,
the plastered ceiling the sky
I asked answers from. What’s so wrong
with my biology? I would utter, and the ceiling
would remain a ceiling despite my wanting.
Sitting up—the silence so dense
it made its own sound—I would interrogate
my own self, if it is really mine.
Judge’s Comment: A lyrical and spiritual reflection on gender, “Interrogation of the Self” captures the societal demand to prove one’s perpetual allegiance to masculinity and the speaker’s resulting abandonment of it. We witness the speaker’s chronicles that lead to the questioning of faith and body. The turn at the end— “and the ceiling / would remain a ceiling despite my wanting”—where the speaker can no longer point the questions outward, results in the interrogating their own identity, imparting a yearning for authenticity and belonging in a world that demands binary and conformity.
Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in Passages North, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Chestnut Review, Fourteen Poems, Cutleaf Journal, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. Currently, he lives in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Ethan Sim is a Singaporean illustrator and artist based in New York City. His works, from transient dreamscapes to intricate graphic narratives, draw from the uncanny and fantastical artifacts of the past and present to explore themes like memory, cultural identity, death, and urban decay.
Like “the signpost that un-alives a robber”, the dangerous side of language is on full display in Nnadi Samuel’s stunning poems about power, land, pain, and Indigenous lineage.