Studies in sacred attention

To be able to write is a gift. While it is often construed as a privilege, which it often is, I believe that the act of writing can and should be available to anybody, as each of us has access to a set of rich and distinctive experiences. I am under no illusions that my own journey into writing has been the result of luck and circumstance, as much as it has been about my upbringing, education, and perseverance. Poetry remains the genre most hospitable to my concerns and dilemmas, serving as a container for paradox and irresolution. Many of the poems I have written have emerged from places of contemplation, prayer, and stillness, and it is in this spirit that I wish to offer ways by which I have persisted as a writer.

Read widely

This is an adage that I’m sure countless writers have mentioned in some shape or form as a writing tip, or as instrumental to their writing practice. Yet, it continues to be central to my own process. I often think that I read myself into writing poetry, through deep engagement with the works of poets such as Langston Hughes, R S Thomas, and Boey Kim Cheng. What I have found liberating in the process of reading across genres, national contexts, time periods, forms, and languages is the continued capacity of writers of different backgrounds to surprise, provoke, and illustrate new pathways in my writing process. Certain preconceptions we might have of poetry – that it has to rhyme, adhere to certain forms, or have an elevated register – might find themselves blown up through encounters with poets who cared little for prescribed rules. It is for this reason that I like to read and to learn from the tricks and tendencies of other poets and writers, which in turn might help me out of a rut in my own creative life. Recently, I have appreciated the work of John Fadely, Jorie Graham, Vidyan Ravinthiran, and Arundhati Roy.

Be open to inspiration from anywhere

The poet nor, in their recent chapbook Ginsberg sing me a jiwang song!, presents the injunction to the reader to “surrender to the joy within!” The poems written in this vein are ecstatic and generous, detailing the poet’s trips, travels, and friendships. It is a philosophy and approach that I have found has often guided my own writing – the notion that inspiration can come from anything and anywhere. A line from another poet, an afternoon with a friend, a scene from a film, a chorus in a song, a new sight whether in someplace new or a place we might encounter every day can provide the seed of a new poem. On a recent trip to Lazarus Island, a southern island in Singapore, I found myself inspired by the sights of brahminy kites seeming to float across the air, the lapping of the waves against verdant isles, and the revelation that the island itself, now designated largely for leisure, was once home to exiles and the quarantined ill. Or, to cite a contrasting example, when I was quarantined on my return to Singapore from England as a university student, I found the way the light fell on the leaves of the trees outside my window, and how the wind caused them to rustle, entering my poems as images. The question is how attentive we are to these moments of joy, or beauty, or sorrow, that cross our paths each day.

Keep a diary

Journaling seems to ebb in and out of fashion in various forms. Some keep diaries that double as planners, some stick ticket stubs and souvenirs on the pages of their diaries. For over a decade, I have kept a digital diary in some shape or form, writing out the ongoings of each day as faithfully as possible, even if they have receded into the past. In particularly busy periods, I have found myself catching up on two weeks’ worth of diary entries (a period such as now as I write this article). My doggedness in maintaining this practice is shaped partly by my desire to recall and to remember each day and not let them wash over too quickly. What I have found to be helpful for my writing is that keeping a diary has helped me to maintain the muscle of writing on a regular basis, but also to clue me into moments of significance that captured my attention, as well as to better process and regulate my emotional state. It is a reflective process valuable not only to personal growth, but also to understanding the arc of my life and how that nourishes my poetry.

Have non-writer friends

On a recent trip to Hong Kong, I absentmindedly thumbed through a book by Christoph Noe called How to Not Fuck Up Your Art-World Happiness while at a museum. It included a tip on maintaining friendships outside of the eponymous art world, the communities outside the constellation of gallerists, curators, collectors, and so on. The suggestion was simple – too often, people in the art world can get caught up with stresses, aspirations, prestige, or accolades that are divorced from the needs and realities of people in other communities and fields. I found that it helpfully crystallised an intuition that many of my friends who are writers share. It can be tempting to be caught up in chasing publications, awards, fellowships, and residencies; a friend who does not read much or care for the micro-politics of a literary community can offer the reminder that so many of these obsessions can seem quaint or insular to those looking from the outside in. For those of us who work in poetry, equally humbling is the reminder that very few people read poetry at all, no matter how many of us feel aggrieved of this fact. Healthy friendships and relationships are vital to flourishing lives, in and out of poetry and literary communities. They can help shape rhythms of living that take us out of the intensity that writing sometimes require. Sharing a meal, having a chat, going for a walk, providing insights from lines of work that bear different expectations of the mind and spirit. They can help to put into perspective that our creative work is not always as important as we might make it out to be, while opening new pathways for ideas.

Embrace the silence

I am often given to the quiet, away from the noise and bustle of crowded places or packed schedules. My friends might find this ironic given the extent to which I keep myself busy. However, it is in cultivating the discipline of silence, and its attendant sibling, stillness, that I have been able to find the focus to work out the ideas I have had for my poems on a page. Part of this is related to a devotional muscle, one that acknowledges that solitude must necessarily accompany a contemplative life. I think often of the words of John O’Donohue, who stated that “there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquillity in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is, now and again, to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.” In my life, that has often been the crucible of my writing, the sanctuary that holds sense of assurance and compassion, in which poems can be cultivated and brought into the world.