Note for Note: Universality Supreme

Presented by

As part of

Credits

Producer ArunDitha

Curator

We live in a time of division - of black and white, right and wrong,

ArunDitha

my opinion and your opinion. We live in a time of separation - of borders and walls, of isolation and lockdown. We live in a time of

Producer (The Arts House)

ambiguity – of visible and invisible – during which the future waits

Lisa Lip

in the state of unknown. All that can be done is to move forward,

Teng Tze Yun

bearing our brightest torch, shining and discovering the unlit places. When we finally are able to see that we are all part of this

Sound Engineer

planet, of this cosmos; we will understand that universality

Rupak George

is supreme.

Poets

Musicians

ArunDitha

Abby Simone

Charlene Sheperdson

ArunDitha

Esther Vincent

Farhan Remy

Marylyn Tan

Kiat

Shivram Gopinath

Mantravine (Rupak George)

Subhas

Shivram Gopinath

Tan E-Reng Theophilus Quek Weish

Curated and produced by Deborah Emmanuel, we present to you Note for Note: Universality Supreme as part of our Poetry with Music series. In this edition, we will be going fully digital, encouraging everyone to drown yourselves in the melodic spoken word pieces at the comfort of your own homes.

Middle Ground

By ArunDitha Music by Farhan Remy; Performed by Abby Simone

I am finding myself an eagle and birdling, a ship and an anchor, a tribe of hollows speaking in the wind.

I am finding myself a barren desert, a glittering fountain, the king and the queen, the villager and the warrior at sea.

I am looking for answers under the quiet of the clouds, I am seeking the questions my mind hasn’t said out loud.

I am rising into wisdom while I fall into despair, I am crawling through the undergrowth and reaching for the bare-ness of the daylight sun.

This way and that where the merry roses sing this way and that and the places in between themselves are calling out to me.

This is my paradox, I am a bridge between worlds, This is my magic dream the living word of all I’ve seen.

Let me drift into the middle ground, where gravity lets go, float alone into the blackness of the deep cosmos.

Let me walk into the no-man’s land where a loving moon can show the way Let me catch the ripples as they come wafting on the unexpected waves.

Here is the spectrum contained in a sliver, there is nothing but emptiness to build this empire there is nothing but emptiness to build this empire,

here is the mountain, the maze and the river,

We become people who we like more or less;

there is nothing but emptiness

People who are different versions of our own trauma;

to build this empire

People who learn to adapt;

there is nothing but emptiness

But ultimately people who die.

to build this empire.

So the only constant is change and that we will die.

Show Me God

By Subhas Music by Mantravine; Performed by Shivram Gopinath

On the day he left our family, my uncle reminded me “The only thing in life that is constant is change.”

I hated him for saying that.

My father could have just turned around, listened, stayed.

I was 16 when I became the “man of the house.”

The one universally shared experience is that we transform.

All of us.

Grief, love, loss, loneliness.

Parts of us die as people leave and places change.

Sometimes it happens drastically – a cataclysmic event that transforms every bit of you.

The scarier change is when it happens over years a change you barely notice it until you’re at a doctor’s office, or in front of the mirror one marooning Monday evening.

When my uncle died, I was too afraid to go to his funeral.

When my father died, I performed his last rites the universal experience of being a Hindu son.

Not necessarily the action of collecting his bones and remains into an urn.

But the expectation “Carrying a person in a pot is a different kind of pain.”

28.

I think about my own return to the universe one day.

My date of expiry. And in the shorter term, my ‘best before’ date.

How long will my body and mind sustain me?

What more can I do to be alive?

But death is a place that we must go So astral travel, Do it with gusto Don’t live fast and don’t you die slow Live dirtier than two dollars at Daiso

Unless we die, we takin’ up too much space So serve our purpose - exit stage

How beautiful to love what death molests What you gonna do - with your last breath?

invisible. At this edge of the estate

I might scream at the top of my lungs,

they rise at arms’ length, toes to the line to keep every heel and turn,

As I enter the swamp of time

so practiced are they in their variations

I might find some peace of mind For a moment - that I couldn’t find in this life

that even now, in the silence of the rails their branches still stretch by habit

But what is life but a period of consciousness,

across the aisle. Forgetting themselves,

Between eternities dichotomous?

each comes within a breath of another’s crown

None of these remedies are congruous To ease of disease so ominous

then stops, carrying in its spread fingers’ shade an imprint of the next living thing, as sky

I’m a firefighting, arsonist

cracks open unannounced, a bare

On the precipice, with no pot piss

blue river in between. Nothing wanes

I’m an Optimist, I’m an Alchemist Show me a God that can conjure this?

this force of life in them. More than

Show me a God.

time has covered the tracks, and on either side saved for a while, a seam of someone else’s

Corridor

By Theophilus Kwek Music by Kiat; Performed by ArunDitha

The raintrees’ dance takes lifetimes, years longer than our music, passing in quick step, is sovereign to itself, oblivious of events and, by its own slow grace,

land unfolds into green. No wonder

the quiet still kneels to meet us here, a sanctuary so familiar. We walk with an unaccustomed ease, not touching.

Our joy is the joy of trees.

Each A Cut and Scythed Slab, Pressed for Time

my scant apologies / sweeten the blow fickle wayward hands / limp unconscienced

By Marylyn Tan

across your brow

Music by Farhan Remy; Performed by Abby Simone a birth: in hitching our in the beginning,

intemperate chariots

man made g*d

to the other’s

much like I

we

guard the firelight

imagined you

sprung fully formed

squatting water-needy, never out of sight

from the brow

sharpening fangs

by the smoking mythos’ edge

of some awe-stricken priestess or

hey, it’s me, curled into your

chest like an asthmatic prayer,

liar

a breath of frankincense and soda water, an steadfast enough to

electrocuted aspergillum, a kneecapped siren’s

outlast time

fish bones marooned on a sandbar,

itself

a lonely chokehold I can smell,

hero ouroboros who sprung whom

a ghazal twisting to break

first

the frail parchment of your throat-skin

came into being by caesarean section ensuring the first act of existence

an incision

unto flesh

again

the second, a wail / spherical and grasping

sublime wanderer, pull the wool over

proverbial monsterfucker / peeling away from

my breathless eyes

my clammy touch

tell me again / how certain languages contain

a hallowed grotto,

the freedom to unspecify the referent / now

trickling gentle

the gesture of love / belongs to any of us endlessly recursive / in my unmoored

plucking me my own words, each glinting shard,

unmother tongue

and pressing them back

into my palm

what g*d has joined man must not divide

Where the Rivers Meet

forgive me thus / my perceiving you through flesh. forgive me this clarity

By Tan E-Reng

is all I cut

Music by Kiat; Performed by ArunDitha

on the whipping block, each arrow

Rest.

handing you your eager ego death

The mountains caress by the thick of the gorge

we wished not for violence, but violence

in an arduous peace

came / bloody-handed / splinters still in fists

of green and rain.

from battening

A god’s yawning maw

down the gates

stirs the flock in turn, shrill with still life.

you, a desecrated border, unfolding torso die-cut and writhed in amber. after the plague of cleaving apart,

the lilting judder

and apart,

A carcass in the heat of sordid bloom, swathed in heaps of

of a voice insistent awakening

in the dark,

lilacs, plastics, plaits, limned in formless ash.

Blood on the blue snow.

of the torched and

No answer is given.

the torn.

Frostbite.

Waste

The wires undo themselves,

every last breath

strip the frame to the skin

you have to your name.

of its grid, teeth still

Shear every page

in the throes of chatter.

from the clasp of your spine,

The debt has been paid.

scrape the paint from the marble,

They ask for no more.

past the bone, into the marrow,

No less.

till the guns outside muffle into thunder.

Patience,

Rain.

for the hands that have been held

The coming nights of pain are laid out

in utter disregard and abandon

before them, tabled,

grow sick with scars.

marked, read.

They write their own wrongs,

Their wet hands erupt from the clay

ink themselves sour,

for one final valiant exultation.

blister over with the strain.

Life has returned them here.

What on earth have you done?

Prostrated, cleansed, They beseech.

Wash.

Wring every inch.

Give, take

And not another word;

The last few tepid breaths

not till the day breaks

Of that same old, static air.

its own fevered silence

Through heat and water,

with the bugle cries

Cicadas and algae,

A final act of vindication

I think about bird devouring bird in a holy ritual

for the flat-line

of predator and prey, a sacred cycle

that threads all our hearts.

of giving and taking.

The mynah bound to the falcon in death.

Falcon

By Esther Vincent Xueming Music by Mantravine; Performed by Shivram Gopinath

The peregrine falcon has found its way to its roost just across my window, fifteen storeys above the ground. Perching motionless in the afternoon sun, it stayed as the heat turned into the shingle of rain. Perhaps it was resting, tired out from its long journey South.

Or perhaps it was watching, patient, waiting for the right time to dive for the kill.

Two days later, it flies to its roost with a half-eaten mynah in its claws. This is the first time I witness a raptor eat its prey in real-life, up close.

Binoculars to eyes, I see how it plucks at the black feathers to get at the flesh.

I watch as they drift down to the road below, and wonder at my own lack of sympathy.

I am rooting for the hunter, this wanderer from the North, now feeding on the mynahs and pigeons in our estate.

The falcon bound to the mynah for its life.

The giver releasing its spirit to another.

The taker honoring the hunt.

The falcon doesn’t finish its meal, but gathers its wings and launches off with the remains into the evening light.

Each day, our eyes turn to the same spot, hoping for a familiar shape. Medium-sized, dark helmet, barred underbelly, yellow eye-ring, yellow hooked bill and talons.

Head-turned, the bird eyeing us in return.

Over time, we learn to decipher the clues.

Body parts of a bird, a chameleon’s tail.

We read the signs like children learning the language of birds.

We admire the falcon’s hard work and labour.

We yearn to inhabit its feathered body, to ride the wind at dizzying speeds.

Earthbound, we imagine ourselves light

as paper kites each time the falcon

It was an egg before it became a calf.

flies into our waking sight.

22 long months in the making then a fall into a tar pit

We dream ourselves winged, perching

12 months later.

on the tallest tree, jungle floor below.

In the ovary of decay, it does not become a fossil.

We see with falcon eyes that we too can weather

It is not preserved. Its memory moves on from the herd.

intense heat and pouring rain.

The mammoths keep marching. Memory is a preservative

That we can stand still

That stays with its mother. She never forgets the way the cub felt

with a falcon’s patience above the din of cranes,

kicking and squirming in her then in the tar pit.

the roar of construction.

The tar pit is as full as her womb is empty.

We wear our barred plumage with the pride of former juveniles.

The ice is melting, it is halfway there.

We circle and drop into a well-timed death

The negroni is not too strong anymore.

to emerge on the other side of our dream, shrieking,

I take the straw and push it on the sphere. It turns,

bursting with life from the tallest tree.

and turns. I poke it down again. I feel the conversation slow. Was this how the calf felt as it sank?

The Mammoth in the Room

By Charlene Shepherdson Music by Kiat; Performed by ArunDitha

There is dust made of mammoth in this ice.

It is frozen and staring straight at me.

When all the ice melts, it will become the mammoth in the room.

For now, I am the only one who sees its tusks en jambed mid-sentence. It was a calf.

With all its limbs submerged, trapped - staring into the eyes of its mother, so well-meaning, as she refused to look away?

The ice is melting, my drink is untouched. the water level has risen. the eyes across the table stay on my drink. I feel the mammoth growing. each dust speck finds another: puzzle pieces searching for the right words, the right tone, the right order.

The question stumbles out, always clumsy,

Whenever he was angry,

uncomfortable, never right. I feel my heart sink,

the heavens would flash and crack with thunderbolts,

as heavy as a mammoth calf

the oceans would rise up to swallow the shores,

in over its head.

and volcanoes would explode with their sludgy red milk.

Multilocation

There was once a man who was also a forest,

By ArundDitha Music by Mantravine; Performed by Shivram Gopinath

There was once a man who was also a forest.

He stood still and rustled in the wind at the same time, moving mountains and rivers with the power of his mind.

He twisted and turned his many limbs north and south, east and west, up and down, sprouting in all directions towards the light of the sun.

His head was a thousand heads, each leaf was a thousand leaves, and each trunk spoke to the next with the same ancient tones, reaching through him from the earth’s core.

There was once a man who was also a forest. every time he laughed, the ground beneath each tree shook with him, every time he was sad, all the creatures big and small felt his tears fall.

but he did not realize he was a forest.

He thought he was just a man, sent here to make children and money, to do magic tricks and rule his thumbs.

There once was a man who was made in a forest

of other men who were also forests

who thought they were only men.

The trees knew the truth, and so did the creatures.

The seas knew the truth, and so did the shores.

The whole earth was aware of who man was, but man did not ask, he was sure he knew.

There was once a man who was also a forest.

There once was a forest which was also a man and the trees spoke to him in his very own voice telling him stories of who he really was, and the leaves rustled with his memories

reminding him of who he was and could be,

Somewhere at a distant desk In Ho Chi Minh or Budapest

waiting for the day when he would finally

A civil servant downs a shot

listen.

Of capsuled coffee from a pod And types some needless document

A Quiet Hum Upon Your Lips

By Weish Music by Farhan Remy; Performed by Abby Simone

Somewhere in a distant town With a name you can’t pronounce Is a man, weary and blue Restless from a night of booze He sighs a sigh, he rolls his eyes He shuffles to the kitchen twice Then stubs his toe in the hallway And swears just as you did today.

Somewhere in a distant room On a cloudy afternoon Is a child asking aloud What life and death is all about She sips her juice, ignores the coos Of adults gawking at her youth She ruminates—unpacks—confronts— And wonders, just as you did once.

At breakneck speed; no different From what you’re doing as we speak Feeling so singularly bleak;

Somewhere in a distant hand Upon some unnameable land Are calluses from routine work The smell of garlic, laundry soap And a bag of takeaway To leave on the kitchen tray For a certain someone who May decide to come back home.

Somewhere, someplace, sometime now A balcony emits the sound Of an old song you used to love Which you can’t recall the name of But somehow it—from worlds away, As you go on about your day— Finds itself within your midst; A quiet hum upon your lips.

Keeping Tabs

By Shivram Gopinath Music by Kiat; Performed by ArunDitha

Late night shut one eye Dark mode heavy sight Cold air conditions My plight Of frightening comfort Despite my self-inflicted odds These are the voices in my head These are the voices in my bed

“Alright when you see that I’m standing In such a space like this with the sky and artificial turf And of course, in an open roof terrace, You’ll know that the PropertyLim Brothers is once again At one of the penthouses that penthouse lovers will love to have

So today we’re at the Flora vicinity, District 17.

If you’re looking for a freehold 4-bedroom, At least 2000 Sq Ft. for a duplex penthouse, I think you’re in for a treat today.

So let’s have a look at The Gale”

“I accidentally went on a gay date”

“It’s important to have a sense of humour in a fighting hole”

“Your digital Yearly Statement of Account is here”

“Jimmy & Anne Hathaway each share their best karaoke songs, worst days of middle school, and first celebrity crushes in Best, Worst, First!”

“If you give me 35 seconds, I’m gonna share with you three simple tips on how I sold over three million worth of products on Amazon.

No. 1: Sell in the USA market, not the Asia marketplace. There are over 300 million people in US, and it is so much bigger and they have way more spending power.

Some Asian countries have less buying power or

may choose to buy directly from China. The good news is you don’t have to be in the US to sell to US people. You can start an online business right here in Singapore or from anywhere in the world.

Tip No. 2:”

“The baby princess is sleeping in the castle; the Transformers cars and the black sculptures are guarding the princess. The two white cushions are the moat and there are trees on either side.”

“Many ladies add bay leaves to their foods, especially in the cooking of red meat and poultry. Many don’t know why bay leaves are added to food!”

“The addition of bay leaves to meat converts triglycerides to monounsaturated fats.

If you have bay leaves, there is no need for a pharmacy, as recent scientific studies have shown that bay leaves have many benefits:

They help to get rid of many serious health problems and illnesses.

The benefits of bay leaf:

They treat digestive disorders and help eliminate •Lumps •Heartburn •Acidity •Constipation

Hot bay tea regulates bowel movements”

“Why do people collude with narcissistic leaders?”

Biographies

ArunDitha

Abby Simone

Poet and Musician

Musician

ArunDitha is a Singaporean poet, presenter

Abby Simone’s stylistic voice is one you can

and singer. She has performed across world

recognise from a mile away: An ambivert who

stages, from Berlin to Bali to Kathmandu to

is loudest when she is crooning to her original

New York City, bringing her powerful voice

music.

and words into creative and corporate spaces as an advocate for decolonisation, gender equality and spiritual sovereignty.

“Play a couple of songs to a group of people who don’t speak a word of English. When someone approaches you, teary eyed and moved, that’s when you realise that music has the power to

ArunDitha’s gifts are genre-defying and diverse, moving through

resonate.” That night, Abby Simone was pushed by her calling to

her in the form of text, song and performance art, channelled

awaken all of her emotions with sound.

prayer and wisdom, making her an incredible live act and speaker.

This diverse skill set has sent her to write and publish her own poetry books and collaborate on multiple music projects as lead vocalist and songwriter, as well as start the YouTube channel Speak It Into Light, a birthplace for intuitive wisdom.

ArunDitha has worked on highly accessible projects as the host of Channel News Asia’s Show Me The City (2019) and the producer of Love Radio for the Singapore Writers Festival (2020). She even speaks to companies and business leaders, workshopping people from all backgrounds with her knowledge. It is as a bridge between worlds that she shares the malleability of her craft, and there is no limit to which audiences will be moved.

Farhan Remy Musician Heavily influenced by jazz, funk and R&B, Farhan Remy mastered his primary instrument, the trumpet, at the age of 8 years old. He is now a full-time member of the Jukuleles, MMLD, Mantravine and has contributed to albums for The Lost Hat Single and also Brass Traps.

Farhan has appeared at the Straits Times Run, the Singapore Motorshow 2017, F1 night race (2018–2019), Neon Lights (2018– 2019), and even Class 95 and 89.7FM. Supporting local and international artistes, Farhan gives his music an extraordinary twist

with the fusion styles he creates and this has led him to perform with the likes of Inch Chua, Nathan Hartono and Lorong Boys.

He has spread his wings overseas in places like India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, KL, Vietnam, and Thailand, but ever true to his roots, you still can still occasionally catch him at Haji Lane where he first started out, or Clarke Quay and Marina Bay Sands, the prime nightspots in Singapore.

Kiat Musician

Mantravine (Rupak George) Sound Engineer and Musician Mantra /ˈmæntrə/ origin: Sanskrit A living sound, a sequence of sacred utterances repeated in full presence with the intention to change an outcome.

Vine /vaɪn/ origin: Latin A climbing plant which grows on the bodies of trees and buildings, this way and that, facing the light and dark, seeking to reach the sky. It can be intoxicating to watch.

The adventurous themes in Kiat’s works are closely linked to the artist’s fascination

Mantravine /ˈmæntrəvaɪn/ origin: Universal

with emotions and freedom. Known for his

A highly conscious and ever-evolving organism composed of

compositions that veer towards the leftfield

interchangeable musical parts; electronic pangs and pings, poetry,

boundaries of electronica, his tunes are

mantra and healing song, banging brass-lines and sweet-stringed

sought after by international DJs, even receiving radio airplay

carnatic guitar. Its psychedelic sound has reached audiences at

on BBC Radio 1 and 1XTRA. A designer by trade, his creative

festivals in New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Hawaii, Germany, France,

approaches have led him to develop works crossing various

Japan, F1, Neon Lights (Singapore) and many more. Mantravine

mediums – from music for clubs to catwalks, theatrical stages to

continues to defy genre with a variety of techniques like

site-specific art installations as well as photography and design

looping, improvisation, audience participation and unexpected

for brands and labels. His work has been featured by Peranakan

combinations of style and frequency. It continues to create new

Museum, ArtScience Museum, adidas, Dior, Selfridges, Nike and

definitions for itself as it grows in further cosmic directions.

SHOWstudio UK. In early 2019, he dropped an EP on Function Records featuring Digital and Kiljoy from Concord Dawn.

Marylyn Tan Poet Marylyn Tan is a queer, female, Chinese, linguistics graduate, poet, and artist, who has been performing and disappointing

of Acting and Creativity, and is a twice-winning Singapore National Poetry Slam champion. He is currently the creative director of UltraSuperNew Singapore, an advertising agency and art gallery.

The world thanks him for inventing velcro and English.

since 2014. Her first volume of poetry, GAZE

Subhas

BACK (Singapore Literature Prize 2020,

Poet

Lambda loser), is the lesbo Singaporean trans-genre witch

Subhas is a rapper from Singapore who

grimoire you never knew you needed. Her work trades in the

seeks to use his writing as a tool to inspire

conventionally vulgar, radically pleasurable, and unsanctioned,

social change. He dropped debut album,

striving to emancipate and restore the alienated, endangered body.

Not A Public Assembly, in 2018, and has

Marylyn is the Poetry Reader for Singapore Unbound, founder of

brought his work to multiple venues including

multidisciplinary arts collective DIS/CONTENT (hellodiscontent.

panelling at the Singapore Writers’ Festival, speaking at TEDx

carrd.co) and can be found in her habitat at instagr.am/marylyn.

PnG, and performing at Other Tongues – a minority voices festival.

orificial or facebook.com/mrylyn.

Subhas believes active allyship is crucial in dismantling systems of oppression on all fronts and spends his time between writing

Shivram Gopinath Poet and Musician Born in Chennai, Shivram Gopinath is a poet who has called Singapore a home since 2002.

music and working on projects in the community. He is currently working on his second album, Tabula Rasa.

Tan E-Reng

He arrived for a business management degree

Poet

from Singapore Management University, and

Tan E-Reng (a.k.a. Falling Islands) is a

stayed for the kway teow. His work has been

Singapore-based poet and electronic musician.

heard at Singapore Writers Festival, Borobudur Cultural and

He is an avid fan of cramming the twenty-

Writers Festival, Jaipur Literary Festival and more. He teaches

six letters of the alphabet into the tin can he

workshops structured around poetic identity at the Haque Centre

calls his brain, adding a dash of synthesizer

music, and shaking the whole thing back and forth until something

forms. She is interested in heritage, technology and creative

pretty (hopefully) falls out. He is also incredibly unused to writing

education. Her poems have been published in From Walden to

in the third person and has no idea how to conclude a biography

Woodlands and UnFree Verse (Ethos Books), A Luxury We Cannot

properly. He also likes cats.

Afford, SingPoWriMo 2014: The Anthology (Math Paper Press) and the Straits Times. Her visual poetry has been displayed in The Arts

Esther Vincent Xueming Poet Esther Vincent Xueming is the editor-in-chief and founder of The Tiger Moth Review, an ecojournal of art and literature based in Singapore.

She is co-editor of two poetry anthologies, Poetry Moves (Ethos Books, 2020) and Little Things (Ethos Books, 2013), and has read for Frontier Poetry, The Brown Orient and Eastlit. Her debut poetry collection, Red Earth, which was a finalist for the Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize 2020

House, The Substation and in Singapore libraries under National Art Council’s Project LAVA.

She is the Station Control (General Manager) of Sing Lit Station, a Singapore-based not-for-profit arts organisation and charity that is committed to developing the literary arts scene through technology, community building and creating spaces for writers to grow their artistic and professional lives.

Theophilus Kwek

(New York), is forthcoming publication by Blue Cactus Press

Poet

(Tacoma, Washington). Her poems have been published online and

Theophilus Kwek has published five volumes of

in print anthologies locally and internationally. A literature educator

poetry, including Circle Line (2014) and Giving

by profession, she is passionate about the relationships between

Ground (2016), which were both shortlisted

art, literature and the environment.

for the Singapore Literature Prize. He enjoys collaborating across genres, and recent

Charlene Shepherdson Poet Charlene Shepherdson is a Singaporean poet and community organiser focused on language in written, performative and visual

projects include commissions for the Royal Opera House, National Opera Studio, and New Opera Singapore. His latest collection, Moving House, was released by Carcanet Press in 2020. He serves as poetry editor of the Asian Books Blog.

Weish Poet Weish is a composer, musician, writer, and Associate Artist with Checkpoint Theatre. A versatile artist who spans diverse genres and disciplines, her works have taken her around the globe – from Sundance Film Festival to the Golden Melody Awards.

With electronic duo .gif and experimental group sub: shaman, Weish has toured across Europe, Australia and Asia. International collaborations also saw her building sound art installations in London, and working with DJs in Tokyo.

In recent years, Weish had the honour of playing musical director to Displaced Persons’ Welcome Dinner (SIFA 2019), then writing and performing form-bending productions such as Beside Ourselves (M1SFF 2020), Two Songs and a Story (Checkpoint Theatre 2020), and Did You Want More Sleep? (SIFA 2020).