There's No Cause For Grief: Reading Goh Poh Seng in 2023

THERE'S NO CAUSE FOR GRIEF: READING GOH POH SENG IN 2023 17 & 18 Nov, Fri & Sat 8.30pm Play Den, The Arts House

O my beloved ones Watch how I spring into The sunlit day, Swim into The moon drowned night So full of joy There is no cause for grief.

Epitaph

By Goh Poh Seng April 8, 2002 Unpublished

When we approached the Goh family months ago about featuring Goh Poh Seng as this year’s Literary Pioneer, they were incredibly gracious in sharing with us a collection of his unpublished poems. We knew immediately that we had to include them into the programme.

The unpublished work spans many topics from poems honouring friends to reminiscing about various places in Canada. They are truly gems which we hope will be published in the near future.

Our brief to the poets for this performance was not to select poems to suit any specific theme. We wanted them to have personal responses to Goh’s work and to select ones which resonate with them. Hence there is no specific narrative to this evening’s performance, instead we present only a deep emotional resonance. We hope you will simply let Goh’s words and the music take your heart and mind on whatever journey it wants to. He would have liked that, we think.

Lisa Lip Producer Singapore Writers Festival Literary Pioneer Programme

A Privileged Conversation with My Patient, Pat Allenby, Fisherwoman of Vancouver Island Unpublished work

From Earth

Bird With One Wing Island Press, 1982

Home and Away Unpublished work

Final Journey Unpublished work

A Brief Sojourn As Though the Gods as a Cat in the Love Us Auckland Winter As Though the Gods Love Us Nightwood Editions, 2000

Unpublished work

For Al Pittman – The Final Dispatch Unpublished work

And What Else?

Unpublished work

Some poems are repeated throughout the performance.

All poems and recordings are used with permission from the estate of Goh Poh Seng.

Goh Poh Seng: A Poet in Newfoundland (2007) Director – Almerinda Travassos Goh Poh Seng (Part 1/2) Goh Poh Seng (Part 2/2)

THE POETS ANG KIA YEE (KYATOS) Ang Kia Yee or kyatos is a practice of writing, performance, and repair. She writes poetry, essays, fiction, and performance texts. Her artistic allegiance is to the transdisciplinary.

Her first book of poetry is Slow Dream Machine (2020). Looser pieces of writing have been published in places like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Stand Magazine and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal; as well as for exhibitions such as REFUSE (Singapore Art Museum) and immaterial bodies (Objectifs).

I chose “From Earth” and “The Final Journey” for their more abstracted images, which I felt could provide counterpoints to Goh Poh Seng’s more conversational pieces.

Wanting to bring in a sense of improvisation and variation with a difference, I wrote a sequence of fusions of the two poems such that we start with “From Earth,” get closer and closer to “The Final Journey” with each variation, and finally arrive there.

Photo credit: Zeha

ZEHA

Cyril Wong is a poet and fictionist in Singapore.

Zeha (b. 2000) is a multi-disciplinary artist.

They are interested in dissecting memories to reimagine the past and the humans of the now. They enjoy how malleable language is and loves to construct and deconstruct mainly the Malay and English language to conjure microscopic imageries and paint soundscapes.

Their performances centre around the relationships between family, queerness, ethnicity, familiarity and reconciliation.

I chose my first poem to offer a sense of Poh Seng’s ability to listen with openness, depth, kindness and unrelenting attention. For the closing poem, I then wanted to showcase a poet’s mystical reach beyond life and dying.

These poems were chosen as I appreciated the beautifully mundane yet microscopic perspective Goh Poh Seng had when penning down anecdotes. They also highlight how textural of a listener and observer he was.

Photo credit: The Mindful Company

CYRIL WONG

THE MUSICIANS CHOK KERONG (MUSIC DIRECTOR, COMPOSER, PIANO AND ELECTRONICS) A composer, producer and keyboardist of extraordinary clarity and depth, Chok Kerong has distinguished himself as one of Singapore’s most versatile talents. His work has been performed by artists spanning multiple generations, such as Cultural Medallion winner Jeremy Monteiro, KEYANA, Joanna Dong, Randy Brecker, Antonio Hart, and Young Artist Award winners Rit Xu and Charlie Lim.

Photo credit: Ian Lim (ianlim.co)

AARON JAMES LEE (DRUMS) Aaron James Lee is a rising star in the Singapore music scene. Having started playing drums at a very young age, he is of local music pedigree being the son of veterans: drummer Jimmy Lee and singer Anne Weerapass.

He has participated in tours, shows and recordings overseas and locally with bands and acts like The Steve McQueens, Andrew Lim, Ben Paterson, Alex Sipiagin, Jeremy Monteiro, Christy Smith, Tony Lakatos, Tan Wei Xiang.

BEN POH (UPRIGHT AND ELECTRIC BASS) An articulate, solid and melodic bass player, Ben’s versatility and ability to play across genres has seen him performing throughout Asia and also in the USA and UK with high profile local and international artistes such as Jeremy Monteiro, Sulene Fleming and Vanessa Rubin. More recently, Ben has been travelling the world performing with popular artist WeiBird as well as megastar A-Mei.