Yet despite the excitement and gratitude that such avenues should have generated, some are reserved about the impact of such readings. A scene can only develop if there is a group, a commune of sorts, of writers, who have an agenda, a direction. Ethos Books, an imprint of Pagsetters, is an active participant in the game, organising the reading at Borders and talent-spotting, apart from publishing. Others, however, remain reserved and perhaps, a little cautious of their own undertaking, with SNP declining to comment on their publishing policy. But not all is a bed of roses for poetry in Singapore.
Poets face resistance from the public, their publishers and even their peers.
We may have huge bookstores and impressive libraries, but Pang believes that the national readership suffers from a narrow-mindedness. We have a reading public but not one with an appetite to devour the range of disciplines. A cursory glance at the bestsellers list of bookstores affirms this suspicion, that popular fiction and self-help books dominate in sales. Poetry is art when You know that the word Stand in shadow, light a ciggy And blow smoke rings Into the floodlit arena Of your mind. All Works are Original and Copyrighted by the respective Authors.