"shoring" Singapore

“shoring” Singapore

“temporary support”, in construction
jargon, but a permanent foundation
buffering this interface: each conquest
redrawing boundaries, layers; fresh bequest
redistributing earth from other banks;
Padang relaid after flags, fireworks, tanks;
as mandates, visions, plans reconfigure,
“son of the soil” becomes a metaphor

who knows what other shorelines might await,
which realignments fit for open trade,
how higher tidelines can be redrafted
for, on revamped drawing boards, as crafted
bay, downtown, herald a brighter future:
this shifted, shifting city in nature

by Koh Buck Song
National Gallery Singapore
Poet-in-residence 2021-22

Even though this year’s edition of the Gallery’s Light to Night Festival has already drawn to a close, aspects of the artworks and experiences still live on.

The Gallery’s Poet-In-Residence, Koh Buck Song, crafted this poem in response to the Fragments of a Shoreline by Akai Chew and Spatial Anatomy, a commission created specially for Light to Night 2022. This artwork sees an urban beach resurfacing on the Padang along Singapore’s old coastline in the 19th century, and is read with 10 stories that expand the conversation on Singapore’s layered land.

Want to see experience more of Light to Night 2022? Some of artworks and programmes—from an outdoor AR exhibition to Gallery Gigs online—have been extended! Find out more here.

About the poet

Koh Buck Song is the author and editor of more than 30 books, including 6 books of poetry and haiga art. He was poet-in-residence at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh in 1992 under the Singapore-Scotland Cultural Cooperation Programme, and has also represented Singapore at literary events in Manila, and at Cambridge University, Harvard and MIT. In the 1990s, he was literary editor and columnist at The Straits Times, and English Editor and General Editor of the literary journal Singa.

Inspired by his visit to Japan in 2015, on a Japan Foundation invitation as a cultural leader of Singapore, he started modernising the haiga, which dates back to 16th-century Japan and unites haikus with paintings. He is currently the Poet-In-Residence at National Gallery Singapore.