Benzie GIFs His Thoughts
/ Poetry Note by Benzie Dio
Hi, I’m Benzie Dio, the poetry editor of this issue.
One of the most defining, and also the most exciting things about SingPoWriMo, is its refusal to answer the question ‘What is a poem’ by any conventional standard or easily reducible axiom. If we are prepared to start from the position that
then a poem is a poem when the thing that is like other things is like other things, regardless of what that thing is. Something something Saussure was correct all along.
With that in mind, consider how in this issue there are many ‘things’: lists, grids, diagrams, mathematical symbols, codings. Interactives. Yes, these are also poem things. And in the spirit of this, it is fitting that this editor’s musings on them are also.
Valen’s was a
The correct answer to Jolene Lum’s will always be
Praval gave us
choices.
Me after reading Jolene Cheong’s
My attempt to plot Quek Jia Qi’s
What is Maddie’s
Margaret ∧
made sense.
Min’s made me sing
I saw the
of Qamar’s poem.
And also the
of Kemlyn’s.
Drima’s made me revisit
(I came back to Jerome’s later because
)
Rodrigo’s was lit
Wahid put it all together for
me.
Me,
at Francine’s.
Me,
at Karisa.
Min’s
one more time.
Not even me, at Joses’.
And finally everything Jerome again
Thank you all for thing things!