新加坡出版

ARIA AND TRUMPET FLOURISH
by Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.
published by Math Paper Press

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In a world inundated by all kinds of texts that can be scanned almost as soon as they’re produced, and that as quickly shimmer away into oblivion, I am overjoyed to sit and read Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.’s much anticipated first full-length collection Aria and Trumpet Flourish.

Even while observing the necessary ceremonies that we must accord our living, the poet never forgets “time’s swift tumble,” the “tar-spackled road” or its “hairline cracks.” Unlike the ostentatious noise made by certain kinds of musical and other fanfare, the voice in these poems sings always out of a sense of urgency underwritten by love.

In this collection marked by masterful clarity and dexterous handling of forms (including ghazals, villanelles, abecedarians, and epistolaries), we glimpse monks walking the roads, crowds in the hellish circle of an MRT station at the end of the day, and the ghost of Jose Rizal in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The poet recalls boyhood breakfasts fortified with bile and innards; and, for all his wandering, turns again and again to little towns and dusty barrios with homely names where a jukebox plays in a noodle shop called Tres Hermanas. He promises us: “This is my devotion: to account for the world’s bounty, its finite grace.// To exalt the flourishing it contains, to ache for what is taken away” (from “Compline”).

These are poems I will want to accompany me through the ordinary and other emergencies of everyday life; through the rest of the year, and beyond. In them, I might hope to learn more about the chrysalis’ secret—how, from its gold wreck of discarded laments, a dying self might help to birth a new one.

- Luisa A. Igloria, author of The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018); Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014); Juan Luna’s Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), and other books

CAPITAL MISFITS 
by Julie Koh
published by Math Paper Press

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A capsule collection of surreal short stories from one of Australia's rising stars.

A woman arrives on the seventh level of Heaven, only to realise it is a trading floor where the dead swap their karma before rebirth. In a Sydney laboratory, a vagrant participates in cosmeceutical trials in return for a Rolex watch. On an island made out of sugar, a student questions the rule of the benevolent Sugar Daddy. At an open mic night in New York, a zen poet takes the stage and begins to tell the greatest, most devastating joke in the world. In this blackly funny parallel universe, Koh explores the absurdity of a world in which the market has become God.

This special edition of Capital Misfits is illustrated by award-winning New York-based artist, Matt Huynh. 

A TREE TO TAKE US UP TO HEAVEN
by Jordan Melic
published by Math Paper Press

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Kueny isn’t much of a worrier, except maybe when it comes to her father, the Custodian of a Thousand Generations, whose soul is hanging by a thread. But when her brother, Ah Ti, inherits the throne and smashes the Watercress Elixir that preserves her family’s heavenly reign, her worries take on a whole new dimension.

Left with no choice, the siblings set out in search of a new home, embarking on a perilous journey that takes them through 14th century Majapahit and 19th century Malaya, where they encounter a dreamy prince who promises them the world, and end up in a sparkling city that will consume everything they know.

A mix of mythology, history and adventure—think Journey to the West meets Huckleberry Finn—Ah Ti and Kueny’s story is about growing up and finding a place for oneself in the world. It is also a story of Singapore, different from the one commonly told—an attempt to capture a sense of the fullness of time contained in the land and its people.

詩集簡介 

　　這是詩人的第六本詩集，收錄了2017年4月至2018年4月這一年內詩人在心情灰丫丫之際「灰」出的105首詩作灰屑。詩作內容可美稱「多元」（多元才能成家），少數寫得好（老郭賣瓜無疑），多數不怎麽樣（自以為「灰」諧），無論如何，正如詩集名稱「致美好的灰色」，字句間可能藏著各種灰色的可能性，惠風和暢。詩人認為，出版第六本小詩集，更加名副其實，對得起名字中的「詩」，而不淪為失靈。

詩人／插畫者簡介

　　郭詩玲，畢業於馬來西亞柔佛州新山寬柔中小學，新加坡南洋理工大學中文系首屆榮譽學士（副修翻譯）、碩士（漢語言學），考獲南洋藝術學院水墨畫甲等文憑。

　　畢業後留校擔任中文系導師、學術書刊編輯，亦曾受邀擔任中學華文創意寫作課導師、少兒華文創意寫作比賽評審等。現任新加坡非營利文化機構華文編輯。

　　曾獲兩屆新加坡大專文學獎文學賞析組獎項。已在新加坡自行出版六部詩集與一部畫集：《我走在我之上》（2014）、《穿著防彈衣的我們怎麽擁抱》（2015）、《當你靈感塞車》（2016）、《得不到你時得到你》（2017，自繪插畫）、《野生的心：郭詩玲水墨畫集》（2018）、《肉與肉的相遇》（2019，自繪插畫）、《致美好的灰色》（2020，自繪插畫）。

　　詩集出版後，20余首詩受邀刊於臺灣詩刊《衛生紙+》；亦有10首詩載於上海譯文出版社的期刊《外國文藝》。詩作獲選錄於2019年臺灣九歌出版社的《華文文學百年選 ‧ 馬華卷2：小說、新詩》。

　　受邀擔任臺灣臺北市文化局主辦的「2019臺北詩歌節」的「國際詩人」。

【詩集簡介】

　　這是詩人的第五本詩集，收錄了2016年4月至2017年4月這一年內繆斯賞賜的105首詩作。詩作內容可美稱「多元」（實則雜亂無章），少數寫得好（此話當真？），多數不怎麼樣（聳聳肩這也沒辦法），無論如何，正如詩集名稱「肉與肉的相遇」，如此有肉感的字（與人），可遇不可求，可謂「詩門酒肉臭，心有凍死骨」。詩人認為，出版第五本小詩集，更加名副其實，對得起名字中的「詩」，而不淪為失靈。

【詩人/插畫者簡介】

　　郭詩玲，畢業於馬來西亞柔佛州新山寬柔中小學，新加坡南洋理工大學中文系首屆榮譽學士（副修翻譯）、碩士（漢語言學），考獲南洋藝術學院水墨畫甲等文憑。
　　碩士畢業後留校擔任中文系導師、學術書刊編輯，亦曾受邀擔任中學華文創意寫作課導師、少兒華文創意寫作比賽評審等。
　　曾獲兩屆新加坡大專文學獎文學賞析組獎項。已在新加坡自行出版五部詩集與一部畫集：《我走在我之上》（2014）、《穿著防彈衣的我們怎麼擁抱》（2015）、《當你靈感塞車》（2016）、《得不到你時得到你》（2017，自繪插畫）、《野生的心：郭詩玲水墨畫集》（2018）、《肉與肉的相遇》（2019，自繪插畫）。
　　詩集出版後，20餘首詩受邀刊於台灣詩刊《衛生紙+》；亦有10首詩載於上海譯文出版社的期刊《外國文藝》。詩作選錄於2019年台灣九歌出版社的《華文文學百年選·馬華卷2：小說、新詩》。
　　受邀擔任台灣台北市文化局主辦的「2019台北詩歌節」的「國際詩人」。

WE R FAMILY
edited by Grace Chia
published by Math Paper Press

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Families come packaged in all shapes and sizes. At the heart of every family unit is love — or what passes off as love. 

A father and son bond over a loss — with wool. A myopic daughter sees her parents clearly for the first time. Two mental patients learn to coexist under the same roof. An American biracial dad finds moorings with his African adoptee. And a Kiwi mum in a mixed family grows roots in multicultural Singapore.

An anthology of eight unforgettable tales, We R Family celebrates the family in its colourful diversity from the whispers of homes in nameless cities to the metropolises of SIngapore, New York, Mumbai and Addis Ababa to the suburbs of Indiana and Connecticut. 

MOTHER OF ALL QUESTIONS
by Grace Chia
published by Math Paper Press

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Mother of All Questions is Grace Chia's third poetry collection about womanhood exploring what home means, how personal identities intersect and the meaning of life by examining domestic psychodrama, childhood innocence, gendered rebellion and the intimate dynamics of love, desire and loss. In Chia's lyrical and elegiac poetry, she makes putty of the female body's vast and richly textured landscape to mould stories of sentiment and the sensuous into callused and tender truths.

AN EPIC OF DURABLE DEPARTURES
by Jason Wee
published by Math Paper Press

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This new poetry collection stands as a record of a friendship between two artists formed in the shadow of illness and mortality. Using the renga and haiku as departure points, Wee wrestles with the limits of art and of the document even as he summons werewolves, ghosts, and other myths. Faced with the inadequacies of witness, An Epic moves towards the living in reverse time, opening with obituaries and ending with a renewed beginning.

footnotes on falling
by Joshua Ip
published by Math Paper Press

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footnotes on falling is a collection of 44 poems about sub-optimal life choices. the poems constantly laugh at themselves because they are polite, and asian. they shuffle their feet sideways while declining eye contact. they indulge in wordplay because it gives them something to do with their fingers. they prefer to read out but also prefer this be done in private. they secretly would like you to bring them home.