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Poems on the MRT

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Seeing Snow for the First Time by Yong Shu Hoong

 

It is strange
how snow makes food
out of everything!
Scattered across desert plains,
it anoints little sand stones
and monumental rocks.
But all I'm envisioning
are frosted pastries,
and coffee cakes cloaked
in generous icing.

I am either poetic or hungry.
And snow in the sky
is another thing:
it flies,
carrying the wind.
One flake
crashes upon my nose,
and in heaven
an angel must be missing
a sequin.

Published in Isaac (1997)

Credit: Daniel Sim

Yong Shu Hoong has won the Singapore Literature Prize for Frottage (2005), The Viewing Party (2013) and Anatomy of a Wave (2022), among the seven poetry collections he has authored. He is a co-author of collaborative works, The Adopted: Stories from Angkor (2015), Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016) and Lilla Torg: A Scandinavian Journey (2023). Currently the festival director of Singapore Writers Festival, he teaches part-time at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

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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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