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Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Dear Bukit Batok by Rodrigo Dela Peña Jr.

 

today I honour how my hours revolve
around your axis: insistent beeping

of delivery trucks come early morning,
a quick jaunt and jog at the Nature Park

by night. Like you, I try to make the most
out of being in the periphery,

the margins where it is easy to be
given the cold shoulder, the outright yawn

for the meagre gifts you offer. I stake
no claim over you, landscape born from

quarried low-slung hills, yet how kindly you
have opened, unlatched the gate for me

to cross. I walk your streets, scattered with dry
leaves, the air rich with the scent of cut grass,

and my heart quickens to find myself
in this darkening light, this clearing.

Published in Aria and Trumpet Flourish (2018)

Purchase the book here.

Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr. is the author of Tangere (University of the Philippines Press, 2021) and Aria and Trumpet Flourish (Math Paper Press, 2018). He also edited A/PART: An Anthology of Queer Southeast Asian Poetry in the Pandemic and co-edited SingPoWriMo 2018. His poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, and he has received prestigious awards, including the Philippine National Book Award and the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Born in the Philippines, Rodrigo has been based in Singapore since 2011.

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Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

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