A luxury we must afford

Tue, 3 Jan 2017
2 min read
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A Luxury We Must Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry. (PHOTO: Math Paper Press)
A Luxury We Must Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry. (PHOTO: Math Paper Press)

My poem, “Where The Wild Things Are”, is in A Luxury We Must Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry.

The anthology is edited by Christine Chia, Joshua Ip and Cheryl Julia Lee and published by Math Paper Press.

Details of the anthology launch:

Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2017
Time: 6pm to 7pm
Venue: The Chamber at The Arts House (1 Old Parliament Lane, Singapore 179429)

Synopsis:
What does the future of Singapore hold?

In 2015, the anthology A Luxury We Cannot Afford commemorated 50 years of man-made myth – 50 years of mysteries and ministries, Marxists and memorandums, the Merlion and The Man – and whether the 1969 assertion that “poetry is a luxury we cannot afford” still held true in the 2010s.

Instead of looking back, this companion volume to the first looks forward to everything SG51 and beyond. It is a collection of bold narratives of Singaporeans shaping their own future, a cornucopia of hyper-modern dreams of robots and aliens, yet also tales of muted despair at a future slipping out of touch with the past.

In the face of a fraught, uncertain future, there is no longer any need to debate whether poetry is an unaffordable luxury. In times like these, writers are the ones who must step up and reimagine possibility, speak out for hope and humanity, and inscribe the circumference of our soul. In 2017, poetry is…a luxury we must afford.

Please go for the launch by signing up here.

Read my poem here.

You can also read “Horrowshow”, which appeared in A Luxury We Cannot Afford, here.

Poet of colour

Tue, 31 May 2016
1 min read
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I’ve always thought of myself in these terms (in no particular order): writer, artist, educator, editor, and so forth.

At most, I’ve included the adjective “Singaporean” in front of the first two nouns, or “based in Singapore” behind the latter two to provide a sense of context.

But never in a million years have I thought of myself and my work in terms of race.

So I was pleasantly surprised – and very amused – to find myself being described as a “poet of colour”, as seen from one of the hashtags on this post:

Apparently, I'm a poet of colour 😂
Apparently, I’m a poet of colour 😂

It’s one of the few times – beyond form-filling and direct or indirect racist comments made in my presence, because people are occasionally unable to grasp my ethnic makeup – that I’m forced to confront the fact that race matters a lot more to other people than it does for me.

Tax-deductible donations to Singapore’s sportsmen

Tue, 22 Dec 2015
2 min read
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From: Laremy Lee
Date: 22 December 2015
To: Giving.sg

Dear Giving.sg

I just visited SG Gives and am happy to find Giving.sg in its place.

Well done – the site is user-friendly and easy to navigate.

For 2016, I hope you can consider implementing donations to individual athletes who participate in solo sports.

The present process for donating to sports associations is excellent.

Would it be possible to include a function so our donations to these associations can be earmarked for specific athletes?

For example, users carry on with the existing process of clicking on the donate button for, say, the Singapore Tennis Association.

They would then be provided with a form field where they could type in the name of the specific athlete to whom they want to donate e.g. Sarah Pang.

I imagine this would greatly help both donors and individual athletes; the former group can enjoy its tax deductions, while the latter group can get the funding it needs to bring home sporting glory.

Perhaps this idea could be explored in greater depth together with the Singapore Sports Council and the national sports associations, if need be.

Thank you for all the great work you have been doing.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Best regards
Laremy LEE (Mr)

From: Giving.sg
Date: 22 December 2015
To: Laremy Lee

Hi Laremy,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. Glad to know that you are happy and found the site user friendly.

We hear you and will discuss the implementation of donations to individual athletes idea with our Technical team and get their feedback on the same.

Let us know if you need details on anything else or have any requests.

We really appreciate your feedback.

Thank you,
[redacted]