時代精神書屋

“One of Singapore’s most visible poets, Pang grows with each book. In his poems we hear a voice unhurried, confident, and capable of carrying diverse humors, and read a rhetoric shaded to ironies, surprising us with glimpses of contemporary experience that affirm yet mock, celebrate and unsettle. His poetry adds a rich and complex presence to the critical mass of urban literature now fully emergent from Singapore. His poems, at once recognizably national and international in reach, offer a fresh edgy energy to this tradition.”

- Professor Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1992 and author of Joss and Gold

“Dey” is Tamil slang. A polysemic portal into community. It is “hey”, “no”, “yes”; it hails, it invites, it warns, it cajoles, it pleads, it loves. Just like Shivram Gopinath’s Dey: a cross-genre, multi- tongued celebration of diasporic desire, complaint and joy that stretches what poetry can be. Part translation, part illustration, part verse, Dey is a love child of Tamil cinema tropes and themes, Singaporean hopes and dreams. A discordant soundtrack to migrant identity, an invitation to a language game, a retort to power. Rajinikanth, Lee Kuan Yew, durian fish soup fight for your eyeballs. A thick syrupy mix, that’s what. Dey, read it.

“at 26—/ the earthquakes began—// tell me,/ how was I supposed to feel at home// when the ground beneath me shook so fast”

homesick is multidisciplinary artist nor’s electrifying poetry collection, an ode to the growing pains of every 20-something’s search for love and belonging. 

Spurred by desire, the journey to belonging unfolds against the backdrop of the heartbreaking now, a time and space shaped by the fantasies of pop culture and the State. But it is exactly when love feels out of reach that the revelations sneak in. To be homesick, it turns out, is also to laugh when it seems most absurd.

With a voice both tender and bold, nor takes us through the highs and lows of coming of age. Bittersweet and outrageous, homesick is a poetry debut poignant and pulsing with hope.