When the Barbarians Arrive E-Book

Alvin Pang

• Herausgeber: Arc Publications
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: Arc International Poets Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 44

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This book is also available as an ebook: buy it from Amazon here. When the Barbarians Arrive is a selected works from Singaporean poet Alvin Pang's five previous collections, including Testing the Silence (1997) and City of Rain (2003). Wry, sensitive and intelligent throughout, the selection ranges from unsentimental love poems to sharply satirical writing. They mock, celebrate and unsettle, at once recognisably national and international in reach, offering a fresh edge and energy to the wave of urban poetry emerging from Singapore. Alvin Pang was born in Singapore in 1972. A Fellow of Iowa University's International Writing program, his poetry has been translated into more than fifteen languages, and he has appeared at major festivals and in anthologies worldwide. He has edited the anthologies No Other City (2000); Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia (with John Kinsella, 2008), and Tumasik: Contemporary Writing from Singapore (2009). Pang was named the 2005 Young Artist of the Year for Literature by Singapore's National Arts Council, and was received the Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture) in 2007.

Leseprobe

WHEN THE BARBARIANS ARRIVE

Published by Arc Publications

Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road

Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK

www.arcpublications.co.uk

Copyright © Alvin Pang 2012

The author asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright in the present edition © Arc Publications 2012

Design by Tony Ward

Printed in Great Britain by the MPG Book Group,

Bodmin and King’s Lynn

978 1906570 98 9 (pbk)

978 1906570 99 6 (hbk)

978 1908376 33 6 (ebook)

Cover image:

Detail from ‘Book IV / X: Centre of Dependency’

from ‘The Consolations of Museology’ (2008)

by Michael Lee (Singapore).

Copyright©Michael Lee, 2008,

by kind permission of the artist.

http://michaellee.sg/#11

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.

International Editor: John Kinsella

for Fong Hoe Fang, pioneer, boss-man, hero, friend

Alvin Pang

WHEN THE

BARBARIANS

ARRIVE

2012

CONTENTS

Initiation

Fly-Fishing

Friction

The Scent of the Real

Homecoming

Shades of Light in Holland Village

What to Write About in Cold Storage, circa 2000 AD

What it Means to be Landless

Absences

Poem for an Engineer

Merlign

The Meaning of Wealth in the New Economy

Other Things

Patience

Salt

Aubade

The Burning Room

Incendium Amoris

Candles

Rain

To Go to S’pore

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Snowscape

Loaded

Upgrading

Made of Gold

When the Barbarians ArriveAcknowledgements

Biographical Note

INITIATION

My father taught me how to toss a line.

He rigged up the reel by thumbing

screws, stretched line like a nerve

through the narrowing

circles of the rod, gave it a quick twist

and the hook was on, curved like a

question, poignant and dangling.

I groped the supple rod, trembling in my hands, feeling

the sway and dip of it. He worked

a secret ritual with his hands, pierced unflinching

some shrimp or small fry pinched near the tail

painlessly, left it to twirl in its throes, twitching.

Or, casting for another batch,

he would clutch the ocean in a fistful of drag.

As children we would crowd round to watch

the magic hiss and hop of his net, upbeach.

When he unfolded the petals of his catch

we would wrestle like fish after fry

to taste the sea in the fresh, well

scalded shrimp – just arrived, alive, now

new within us – although

we kept our distance, lest we mar the spell.

For my first fling he chose a shrimp. ‘Thick

and sweet’ he said, ‘to take the big ones.’

It jerked as we rehearsed the ritual

drawback and right flick,

then patted me off to jostle

the men, find a place of mine,

squeeze in a spot to toss in my own line.

FLY-FISHING

A soft flick, vague as memory,

and then the straight plunge

of weight, laying out a line from

life to life, a morse-code of motion.

You listen for the slips, the signal,

the tentative nudge, and count

each wink in flaked sunlight

a trout for every thought. One

slapped the river in a frenzy of thrashing

then flashed away, lure and not

steel in its dark maws. But

the joy is in the tense tremble,

the reining in with the reel

held close to your ear, watching

the vague wake burst

into rich silvery form. Later,

stooped to scale it and oblivious

to the wet slime slick on my skin,

I might remember leaping gurgle oracles,

bubbles babbled like words, recalling

men back to the bait

with caution and exuberance:

immerse yourself and play by the rules.

FRICTION

I

Tending to her, I run my hands

down the papyrus of her skin,

I rub away at the bruises,

where the veins had been

scrawled on too long

by the drip needle, have spilled

their blue in dull pools

beneath her skin.

They fascinate my touch –

small, soft circles

from which warmth begins

to spread, as dead blood

disperses, and feeling

returns.

I imagine her

gaunt cheeks, soft hollow

fill and breathe with colour,

her eyes catching fire

as I rub at her wrists

for the heat of friction.

II

I remember what my grandfather did

when I ran out of the shower and slipped

and nearly broke my head on the wall.

He bore me on his back like a gunny

sack all the way to hospital, despite being ill,

and waited in the silent corridors until

they were sure I was fine. I remember – but this

is what grandmother would tell me,

over and over, as I flinched, ungrateful

with pain as she tended my bruises

with firm thumb and the soft balm of story,

the next time I fell, and the next time.

THE SCENT OF THE REAL

For Cyril, who said:

‘Real life, if there is a real life, is boring, and therefore, not art.’

Of course it isn’t.

But there’s that

one second between

dreaming and waking

when we can never be

too sure where

and which we are.

Now and then it follows us

into the bare room

of consciousness;

blanket sagged to floor

again, the bed wincing

in its regular creak.

With luck, there’s someone

beside you, who doesn’t notice

the slight glaze in your eye,