09 workshop song

I would write about land in SIngapore and the history of how it has been used in Singapore to sustain life and support communities. I would talk about the different natural ecosystems that have existed in Singapore since before the earliest human inhabitants, how the soil and vegetation and in turn support animals and birds, and provided food and building materials for people, and how the land inevitably gives rise to myth. I would also write about how land has always been synonymous with power since time immemorial and how that impacts our lives in a multitude of ways, and when Singaporeans say there is no nature in Singapore or that there is no land or space in SIngapore, when we forget how connected we still are to the land, how that impacts our mindsets, limits our imaginations and what it really says about us.

I would write about the little beautiful things around me when I'm sad. Recently I just went through my first breakup while going through family problems and at the same time just quit my longest-kept job. Amidst all these, new people whom I've met only last year are the kindest and most caring people I've met and it's their purity that makes it difficult for me to drown.

I would write about Creation. I would marvel at how great Creation is, and how wonderful almost everything we see is by design, but also how teeny and insignificant we are in comparison to the rest of our solar system. And even if we were to let our home planet crash and burn and drive our species to extinction, it would still be but a tiny blip in the massiveness of our galaxy. I think such a perspective is greatly needed if I were to ever find myself in such a stressful situation where my life depends on how “good” my poem is.

There are two options: (1) I would either write about the 19th century psychic medium, Hélène Smith, and the impact of her seances on the founding figures of modern linguistics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. I want to tell this story because it forces us to acknowledge that superstition/the supernatural/the occult were important forces in the making of modern science. Alternatively, (2) I would write about the history of colonial linguistics, and its legacies in present-day nation-state politics, especially by creating barriers for minority groups' recognition in the postcolonial world.

7 steps to love. It would be ironic, painful, interesting and definitely wrong.

I would write about the last bruise I had and the speculations about how it came to be. Perhaps, it was the crash into the side of the door as I ran frantically away from an insect. Subsequently, getting teased for the purple stain. Or it was the jerk I had in the middle of the night from the nightmare that has been tormenting me for years. Plausibly, a subconscious fear that was unresolved. No one likes having such blemishes but I do. It defines my lumbering trait but keeps me grounded, reminding me of reality. That I am alive.

7 steps to love. It would be ironic, painful, interesting and definitely wrong.

According to legend, the Emperor Cao Pi was so paranoid that his brother was trying to usurp his throne that he summoned him and ordered him to compose a poem to prove his innocence. He had to do this after just taking seven steps. If you had seven steps to write about anything, what would it be about and why?