More than 100 S’pore poems fill trains and MRT stations, Latest Singapore News

You have seen advertisements for mala fish or many posters created by artificial intelligence calling for recruitment of this or that organization on trains and at metro stations.

Now take a breath: something less commercial – and decidedly more lyrical – takes over.

For a full year from 1 November, passengers will find the humor and wit of Singaporean poets in these public spaces – Wong May catching a glimpse of her lover at the train terminus, or Lee Jing Jing telling readers to “Hear the difference between / Shut up” . , and/Shut up, la.”

And lest first world Singapore forget its origins, migrant poet M.R. Mirzan reminds passengers that “My sweat turns villages into subways and subways into civilization.”

Ng Yi-sheng’s humorous play “Roti Chatter”, which references the multicultural heritage of the Republic, will make you smile. He writes: “Prata knows Malay, / Mantu mutters Mandarin… You will hear talk of bread, but / Kopi tiam.”

In the largest effort to date to promote Singaporean literature (SingLit), more than 100 excerpts of poems have been plastered on trains and stations on the North-South, East-West and Circle Lines served by SMRT.

This means more than 120 poetry panels across 20 trains, but the campaign also includes 1,920 screens, looping animation on SingLit and video interviews with poets.

One concept train, running on the North-South and East-West lines until February 20, 2025, features floor-to-ceiling SingLit stickers containing graphic maps of bookstores still operating across the island to help those looking to get their hands on – direction in preserving book culture after the year bookstores closed.

The campaign is a collaboration between the National Arts Council (NAC), SMRT, the advertising arm of rail operator Stellar Ace and non-profit organization Sing Lit Station, which was contracted to produce the material in late 2023.

Sing Lit Station chair Fiona Chan, whose first encounter with Singaporean poetry was on the subway during a more limited campaign in the 1990s, says her team saw an opportunity to allow poetry to “enter the mainstream on a much larger scale”. Around 3.2 million people – Singaporeans and tourists from all walks of life – connect to MRT portals every day.

While poetry can sometimes be revered as the highest literary form, Ms. Chan insists, “People will see that poetry is not really esoteric. This is something you can do every day. It lifts your spirits.”

Curators working with Sing Lit Station have whittled down a list of more than 1,000 poems. About 60 percent of the 104 included in the final version speak English, with the rest evenly divided between Chinese, Malay and Tamil. All are displayed with English translation.

As for the curation process, Ms Chen says the team looked for “uplifting, positive elements in the passages” that could offer tired passengers “a little ray of sunshine”.

Asked whether the committee avoided more controversial poems, she said the passages chosen had to be appropriate. However, “it wasn’t that difficult. Many of the poems are already nostalgic or reflect a certain atmosphere of the local culture,” she adds.

During its launch on November 1, Sing Lit Station opened a pop-up library at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station and distributed free poetry magazines. The trains also featured spoken word performances by seven poets, including Yeo Kai Chai and Arundita, in retaliation for the previous guerrilla initiative.

This is the third initiative under NAC and SMRT’s three-year agreement in 2023 to revitalize commuting spaces through the arts.

The first was I Play SG Music, launched in 2023, which brings homegrown music to train and bus stations through a playlist updated every quarter. The second allowed people with disabilities to work at SMRT stations.

Sing Lit Station CEO Zaris Azira says the large-scale project will contribute to Singapore’s literary canon and contribute to the ongoing debate around it.

She points to the rich resources the curatorial team used, such as the online archive Poetry.sg and the Singapore literary journal Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.

Ms. Chen adds, “Canon is a living, breathing entity, and our community believes that it truly is something that is constantly evolving.

“We hope that people will start to develop their own personal canon of works that they like. Then you can create your own personal library of poetry.”