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April 5, 2006

Far from prosaic

Poetry, when read aloud, ought to be more than a string of words put together. I realised tonight how fascinating it can be to hear a poem's inherent drama spring to life. Francesca Beard on stage is constantly in motion, conveying the essence of the poem with her whole being. Never insipid, never droning, never merely reciting, and definitely never reading.

Watching and listening, I was humbled. For I realised that modern poetry — the free verse I so detest and rarely read — is the form that lends itself best to performance. Ordinarily, I have no patience with free verse; one sentence broken up into two or three lines or more — anyone can write that kind of 'poetry'. I prefer the beauty, the orderliness, and the sheer challenge of the rhyming quatrain or sonnet. Yes, I am a poetry snob.

I may never be able to fully appreciate free verse in written form, but I could never tire of watching it performed. Not read, mind you, nor recited; performed.

Posted in Events, Poetry | | Comments (2)

December 30, 2006

Gaining impetus?

Dropped by the Write Out Loud book launch today (very late, I might add) to share in Alexandra Wong's moment of triumph. Alex has been a friend to me since we started chatting online in August 2005. I still have the transcript of our very first conversation, which started with her saying to me:

"Hi, I've never really added a stranger quite like this but I wanted to tell you I like your blog and the last few posts touched a chord."

She wanted to run off after that, but I persuaded her to introduce herself -- "You know me but I dunno you wor". After that we went on to talk about everything from parents to men to online dating to cost of living in KL / PJ to writing for the newspaper. I love instant messaging.

Alex is passionate about writing, and it shows. Local author and newspaper columnist Lydia Teh recently said in an interview that writers must be hungry in order to succeed. I often think that Alex is far more hungry than I. She gave up a lucrative and successful career in order to write, and she actively chases leads, jumps at the chance to network with other writers, and constantly submits stories and articles to various publications. Me, I say I want to be a writer, but am remarkably calm about it. Alex is anything but calm when it comes to this; she is devoted to making her dream come true. So if anyone deserves to have the joy of seeing one of her works published in a short story anthology, Alex's name is the first to come to mind.

At the book launch, I also met Ted Mahsun, a writer / blogger I'd so far only known by name (always see his comments on Sharon Bakar's blog!). It was good to speak with Karen-Ann Theseira, who put the book together, and to hear that a follow-up project is already in the works. She invited us -- BP and Sneexe were also present -- to submit stories for the next anthology.

I don't have anything to show her at the moment. Maybe that should be one of my resolutions for 2007: write more creative stuff. And try to read at least a book a month, since I can't hope to finish reading all the unread books I have!

Posted in Events, On writing | | Comments (6)