JOSHUA IP
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sonnets from the singlish

sonnets from the singlish is a collection of 44 poems on love, language and other funny stuff, loosely translated from the english- based creole language colloquially spoken in singapore, widely known as singlish. the poems are all sonnets, an archaic italian fourteen-line rhyming verse form that went out of fashion about the same time as frilly pants.

it was first published by Math Paper Press in Jun 2012, and (co-)won the Singapore Literature Prize for English Poetry.

sonnets from the singlish UPSIZE EDITION doubles the original collection with 88 poems, and was released in Nov 2015.  you can get it here. 

with the publication of the UPSIZE EDITION, i have released all of the 44 original poems (50% of the new book) in digital form below, as the original version is out of print (and wholly subsumed within the new version.) teachers, students, or just lovers of poetry may feel free to reproduce any of these images for your personal usage - enjoy!

guide to editions: first edition - blue cover, second edition - red cover. upsized edition - yellow cover

Note: from 2014-15 onwards, Math Paper Press has shifted from the serif font Hoefler Text to the sans serif font FF Kievit for its poetry publications, but i've kept the original font face to preserve the feel of the first and second editions. 


reviews

I am fond of the sonnet, and Joshua Ip plays with it to great satisfaction. Occasionally there are lyric bursts of longing, perhaps even nostalgia, but these are balanced out with what I would call a clearheaded look at the state of the Singlish -- present language (language shapes thought) and how it relates to heritage. The ode to the karang guni man is a case in point: startlingly ecocritical, general and abstract, it narrows down to an unmistakably specific and concrete part of Singapore culture. Possibly, then, these sonnets-as-identity do most of their work in the volta; in the change from past to present, from disparate traditions to something new.

- Tse Hao Guang, poet

If these experimentations with cultural clashes from East-West, High-Low, Chinese-English, are anything to go by, Ip’s native tongue is the language of hybridity, and as he puts it in “tongues” (scrabble), he is indeed “learning a new way home” around the challenges of writing as an Anglophonic writer in the twenty-first century.
- Tan Teck Heng, for poetry.sg


Don’t expect to read 44 poems written in Singlish, or 44 Singlish sonnets. In fact, Ip has described the book as “riffing off Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (also 44 sonnets).” But Ip does better. He mixes pop culture — mostly local, and some international with a local twist — while discussing local issues, and subtly expressing his opinions about local affairs; matters that are often uniquely Singaporean.
- Raven Sim, for NUS Libraries


Joshua Ip's Sonnets from the Singlish (first published in 2012) showcases a completely different kind of down-to-earth poetry, one that is rooted in the poet's consciousness of the nuances and mundanities of everyday life in Singapore... Its fluid and brisk rhythm, permitted by the iambic pentameter of the sonnet form, imitates the candour of everyday Singaporean conversations... They trivialise as a way to strive and survive.

- Chloe Li, for Cha: An Asian Journal

As with the first 44, the new sonnets are breezy, digestible renditions of the traditional form (famously used by Shakespeare). Literary snobs may turn their noses up at some of Ip's earthier references, which include videogames (StarCraft and The Witcher), Jack Neo films ("us motley ah-boys grew to men"), and even Miley Cyrus ("i came in like a wrecking ball")... His relatable references are part of the appeal. But dig a little deeper and the profundity comes through... ...Ip's greatest strength lies in crafting these absurd scenarios, which vividly and concisely capture the gist of his philosophising.

- Tan Teck Heng, for The Business Times (paywall)


entry
monkey learns to jump
the education of a monkey
twilight (part 1 of 2)
twilight (part 2 of 2)
homebuilding
invisible men
k ge zhi wang attends a poetry reading
lamenting the lack of private spaces in our country
the song of icarus, the friendly ice cream guy
unbeatable
note
soft-boiled
physical geography
the writer's choice
those were the years, and she the girl we chased.
should delete
the ballad of prince ali ababwa
the ballad of prince adam (the beast)
the ballad of prince eric
man in the mirror
advisory
the shitty carparking in orchard road
a sending poem
one-winged
occupation
chope
bridezilla
kani//nabe: a conversation
going to the beach
fan sabisu
power levelling
shrine to civilisation
defence of the ancients
rag and bone
to my kid
over-heard at al-azhar
bukit timah, singapore
the civil servants' picnic
the old builder complains to the new town-planner
conversaytion
"we spoke"

and because some people like them, the end notes.

<<update dec 2015>>
a few people have been asking me which poems are newly upsized and which poems are original. so i did a reference chart in both image and excel (downloadable) form for your convenience. 

Picture
sfts_inventory.xlsx
File Size: 39 kb
File Type: xlsx
Download File

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  • Home
  • art
    • poetry >
      • sonnets from the singlish
      • making love with scrabble tiles
      • footnotes on falling
      • SingPoWriMo
      • A Luxury We Cannot Afford
      • Unfree Verse
      • Twin Cities
      • call and response
      • 11x9
      • Farquhar
      • To Let the Light In
      • translations to the tanglish
      • Ipster Cafe @ The Middle Ground
    • graphic novel
    • music >
      • musicals
      • lyrics
      • a capella
    • prose
    • where to buy
  • about
  • stuff
    • events
    • press
    • publications
    • ideas