SLS is proud to host an intimate evening of readings featuring a powerhouse lineup of poets.
Jo Morris Dixon, Laura Jane Lee, Mary Jean Chan and Theophilus Kwek will be present to recite works from their most recent collections of poetry. Covering concerns ranging from the refugee and migrant crisis to the turmoil of queer adolescence, their poetry is guaranteed to surprise, astound and illuminate the world in ways we’ve yet to consider ourselves.
Admission is free, although donations are encouraged. Seats will be made available for up to 25 pax. Book sales and signings will also take place after the event.
Jo Morris Dixon is from Birmingham and currently lives in Oxford. Her poetry has been published in Oxford Poetry, The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Ambit and The Signal House Edition. She was longlisted for the 2015 Plough Poetry Prize and the 2019 and 2020 National Poetry Competition. I told you everything is her debut pamphlet, out now with Verve Poetry Press.
Laura Jane Lee is a poet from Hong Kong, currently based in Singapore. Winner of the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize, her work has also been awarded in various international competitions including the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, Out-Spoken Poetry Prize and the Poetry London Mentorship Scheme, among others. She has been published and featured in journals and newspapers such as The Straits Times, Tatler Asia, HKFP, HK01, QLRS, ORB and Mekong Review, and will be reading at the 52nd Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Previous pamphlets include chengyu: chinoiserie (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2020) published under her former name, and flinch & air (Out-Spoken Press, 2021).
Mary Jean Chan is the author of Flèche (2019), published by Faber & Faber. Flèche won the 2019 Costa Book Award for Poetry, was shortlisted in 2020 for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize, and was chosen as a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in 2021. In 2022, Chan co-edited 100 Queer Poems (Vintage Books) alongside Andrew McMillan.
Mary Jean Chan is a Visiting Writer at the Asia Creative Writing Programme, a collaboration between the National Arts Council and the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University. Chan’s second poetry collection, Bright Fear, is forthcoming from Faber. They are currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Oxford Brookes University and serves as a supervisor on the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Born and raised in Hong Kong, they live in Oxford.
Theophilus Kwek has published four full-length collections of poetry: They Speak Only Our Mother Tongue (2011), Circle Line (2013), Giving Ground (2016) and Moving House (2020). Both Circle Line and Giving Ground were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2014 and 2018 respectively. In addition, his pamphlet, The First Five Storms (2017), was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award and won the inaugural New Poets’ Prize. Today, he is Poetry Editor of the Asian Books Blog, and a member of the editorial team behind Practice Research & Tangential Activities, a new journal of Southeast Asian writing.
VENUE: Sing Lit Station
ADDRESS: 22 Dickson Road, #02-01, Singapore 209506
EVENT WEBSITE: Facebook
DATE AND TIME
12 Aug 2022, 7.30pm-8.45pm