with a capital P

/ Foreword by Cheyenne Alexandria Phillips & Melizarani T. Selva

Ah yes, here we are, the political issue.

The illustrious repertoire of a literary outfit is never truly complete without an edition that wrangles with the reasons why we write what we write.

Issue ⑧ explores all the things that cannot be left unsaid. The ones that demand to be written down, screamed, documented, spoken out loud, bravely. The ones we write in ALL CAPS to echo a yell off the screen. It rings in your ears and implores you to listen closely.

To tackle this theme from our home ground to across the Straits of Tebrau, we called upon two exceptional feature writers and a seasoned poetry editor, to bring it all together.

Singapore-based writer and Yale-NUS student Max Pasakorn takes us through the hallowed halls of the campus. Using a selection of mighty personal photographs of personal spaces, he offers readers an opportunity to recall the significance of the nooks and crannies of a home that will soon cease to exist. In this empathetic memoir, Max visualises how the closure/merger announcement has impacted his relationship with his school.

Malaysian writer and translator Zedeck Siew dives into the depths of decolonising language in his braided story. Exploring the intricacies of writing in Malay and English and power dynamics of a nation’s tongue, depending on who wields it, Zedeck invites readers to interrogate our relationship with the words that are handed down to us, via folktales and literary practices we have yet to question.

Our poetry editor for this issue is the inimitable poet and literary critic, Daryl Lim Wei Jie. Fresh off the heels of calling out plagiarism in the world of cookbooks, Daryl lends his lens to select poetry that traverses the personal in political and political in the personal. In his poetry note, he illustrates this integrated relationship and guides readers to consume his curated poems in a specific order for a fuller experience.

Each contributor you see here has written from a position only they can write in; their respective contributions also represent something meaningful to them, something that engaged them on a very intimate level, something we as editors were curious to know. Piecing together Issue ⑧ has been a fascinating study of how they were moved by and, later, make moves to engage with an unmovable circumstance.

With that, we hope you enjoy this issue, and like us, you will be, with a capital P:

Pleased.

/ Melizarani T.Selva is a Malaysian writer and spoken word poet. To date, she has performed in six countries with notable performances at StoryFest Singapore, ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival and TEDxGateway. Her first book, Taboo is a poetic exploration of her Masters’ thesis on the constructs and representations of the Malaysian Indian Identity. Her poems have been translated in French and Bahasa Malaysia. Presently, she co-runs If Walls Could Talk: Poetry Open Mic, the Malaysia National Poetry Slam and has co-published an anthology of 100 poems by 61 poets from Malaysia titled When I Say Spoken, You Say Word!

/ Cheyenne Alexandria Phillips is a writer, performer, educator, and Associate Artist with Checkpoint Theatre. Cheyenne’s new work A Grand Design was presented by Checkpoint Theatre as an audio experience in 2020, and its live performance is under development with them. She has co-written and performed in two plays focusing on Eurasian narratives and personal history: In The Twine (commissioned for Singapore Writer’s Festival 2018) and For The Record (Centre 42’s Basement Workshop Residency 2017). She has hosted eco-literary walks around MacRitchie Reservoir in collaboration with the Public Utilities Board (PUB) as part of Singapore Water Month 2018. Cheyenne’s writings can be found in Contour: A Lyrical Cartography of Singapore (2019) and Who are you my country? (2018). She is also a licensed Tourist Guide.