Our literary bromance with Singapore

In her remarks at the Singapore Management University (SMU) on All Saints Day last week, on the occasion of the mini-launch of my latest title, Lush Life: Essays 2001-2010 (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House), Ambassador Minda Calaguian-Cruz recalled that she was yet a deputy chargé d’affairs at our embassy in Singapore in 2001 when Love Gathers All: A Philippines-Singapore Anthology of Love Poetry, was launched there.

It was good to be reminded of that first concrete manifestation of the brewing literary bromance between our two Southeast Asian countries, whose poets and writers share an affinity with the written word in English.

The idea for that landmark anthology, jointly published by Anvil Publishing in Manila and Singapore, was hatched on a beer-guzzling night with the young Singaporean poets led by Alvin Pang and Aaron Lee, with whom we resolved to come up with an anthology of love poetry. The antho eventually had them as the Singaporean editors, while RayVi and I took the responsibility for the Philippine selection.

Well, nearly a decade later, Dinah Roma Sianturi’s poetry book, Geographies of Light, was launched several weeks ago in Singapore, where she is currently based. Dr. Marjorie Evasco of De La Salle University flew from Manila to attend the event that Alvin Pang helped organize.

And last week, since I was invited by good friend Dr. Kirpal Singh, who heads SMU’s Wee Kim Wee Centre, to moderate the closing panel discussion of the American Writers Festival that he had organized, and to speak on poetry before a literature class, I thought of following up the launch last Oct. 20 of my 26th book by having a mini version at SMU.

I was assured that a number of Filipino friends in Lion City, mostly working for the publishing industry there, as well as Singaporean writer-friends, would manage to constitute a little literary party. 

A pity however that our lifelong friend Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas, whom we last saw in Dumaguete thence at the CCP Little Theater for the farewell rites for our mom Edith L. Tiempo, had to return to Iowa City before the scheduled launch on All Saints Day.

With a little help from my friends: Helen and Orland Punzalan, Dinah Roma Sianturi, Sunil Govinnage, Robert Yeo, Alvin Pang, the author, Kirpal Singh and Dengcoy Miel

We still managed to engage in company on the eve of her departure, when she joined a panel with Robin Hemley, director of the University of Iowa’s Creative Non-Fiction Workshop, and who has masterminded month-long sojourns of his UI writing students in the Philippines for traveling workshops. The third panelist was Matthew Bloomfield, a.k.a. “the rapping professor” from the University of Toronto.

The threesome spoke on “Why Good Writing Matters,” with yours truly moderating the discussion, only a couple of hours after being welcomed at Changi’s budget terminal by one of Kirpal’s minders. 

In the audience were familiar faces: Singaporean poet Chris Mooney Singh and his wife, whom I last saw at the Taboan Writers Festival in Davao City held early this year; Liza Baccay who was a National Writers Workshop fellow in Dumaguete a few years back, and who now works in Singapore; SMU student-poet Jasmine Teh who was a fellow in Dumaguete last summer; and poet-playwright Robert Yeo, my oldest Singaporean friend, whom I met at the International Writing Program in Iowa City way back in 1978, and who had just launched his latest title, Routes: A Singaporean Memoir 1940-75. 

Robert informed me that he had entrusted my copy to our common friend F. Sionil Jose, who had just flown back home after his stint at the ongoing Singapore Writers Festival. I had to give up a free copy of my book, then, as fair barter. In any case, I’m quite glad for Robert for having been chosen as the SeaWrite Award winner for Singapore this year. He goes to Bangkok to receive the prestigious prize once the flooding there subsides.

Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas at SMU, with Singapore’s skyline for a backdrop

 To close his conference with a bang, Kirpal invited everyone to a boat ride up and down the Singapore River, with drinks, after which we joined scarifying Halloween characters at Clarke Quay. We lost one another in the Friday crowd, so that Robert and I missed out on reconnecting with Rowena, who was taken for a chili crab dinner by her young minders.

The following day, I met up with former Evening Paper compositor Sarah Loyola who treated me to lunch at the Ku De Ta resto lounge on the top deck of the fabulous Marina Bay Sands Hotel, with its spectacular Sky Park pool nestled on two of its three high-rise towers, and 360-degree views of the ever-changing Singapore skyline.

Then we hooked up with Straits Times’ topnotch editorial cartoonist Dengcoy Miel, who will soon open a two-man exhibit with Bogie Tence Ruiz at the Artesan Gallery as part of the Art Trek festival of Philippine visual arts organized by poet Neal Imperial of our Philippine embassy. That festival for the month of November opened with performance art pieces by the legendary David Cortes Medalla who flew in from London. Again, a great pity that he had to come in a day after this pub buddy’s own departure. 

Also last Saturday, Sarah, Dengcoy and I found time to drop in on Butch Dalisay’s panel discussion on “The Writer’s Challenge in a Globalized World” together with London-based writer with Caryl Philips, with Kirpal moderating, at the at the reading room of the Li Ka Shing Library.

Manu Joseph with the 12 books long-listed for the 2011 Man Asia Literary Prize for the Novel, not one of which was by a Filipino author.

Hooking up with Reuters’ photojournalist and photo editor Claro Cortes, we then dashed off to the National Museum of Singapore to catch what we could of the announcement of the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize long-list. I was disappointed to find out that of the 12 published books that joined the list, not one was by a Filipino author.

Then on Nov. 1 we had the lush launch at the SMU Administration building, with Ambassador Minda Calaguian-Cruz delivering the remarks, followed by Annabelle Lee-Adriano of Dumaguete City, who had flown in an hour earlier with her daughter Suyen.

Again I was pleased by the attendance of our Singaporean poet-friends such as Alvin Pang and Robert Yeo, together with Sri Lankan-born, now Perth-based poet Sunil Govinnage, a new friend who bills himself as “the Black Australian.”

Another Sri Lankan writer-scholar whom we met, courtesy of Kirpal, was the eminent Prof. Chelva Kanaganayakam, director of the Centre for South Asian Studies of the University of Toronto, who recalled that he had visited UP Diliman some 15 years ago, where we had actually first exchanged books. 

It was all about books and writing in our latest sojourn in Singapore, the city that has been very kind and hospitable to Pinoy writers and artists.

STAR columnist Butch Dalisay discusses literature vis-à-vis globalization as co-panelist Caryl Phillips listens.

I’m happy to report that the dynamic Books Actually bookshop run by Kenny Leck at Tiong Bahru now carries Dinah Roma Sianturi’s Geographies of Light, Marjorie Evasco’s Dreamweavers, and the Under the Storm poetry anthology edited by Joel Torre and Khavn dela Cruz. Our discussion with Kenny that evening when Alvin introed us to the bookshop gives us hope that it will have a veritable corner for many other Philippine literary titles to occupy.