A Judge's Choice
I feel great.
In the recently-concluded 4th Dead Poet's Society (Singapore)'s poetry writing competition, one of the three judges picked my poem "Not His National Day", as his choice. There were a total of nine entries. I would like to stress here that at the time the judges picked their favourite poems, they do not know the identities of the authors.
And the judge who selected my poem? Gilbert Koh. Yes, the same Gilbert Koh who won this year's Golden Point Awards for English Poetry. The GPA is a national literary competition.
When I read the post in the poetry forum, it was like "Wow! Oh my god, Gilbert has selected my poem!"
Reproduced below are Gilbert's comments on the poem, as it appears in the forum. Let me have my 15 minutes of fame, okay?
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I liked Poem 1 and Poem 7 best. Neither poem feels completely "finished" to me - I think that they both can be further improved. But the main ideas driving these two poems definitely have poetic potential.
My Comments on Poem 1
I liked the arrangement of lines; the realistic feel of the poem; and the clever juxtaposition of the two contrasting scenes, which illustrates very well the sad situation of the down-&-out Singaporeans on the fringes of our supposedly affluent society.
"Shattered dreams" was somewhat cliched though. The last stanza has a problem with tenses - I think the poet should be sticking with the past tense. "Rippled in applause" was a nice phrase - I liked that bit. I also liked the arrangement of lines in the 2nd stanza.
And I vote for Poem 1.
================
And that's my poem!
Thanks, Gilbert!
In the recently-concluded 4th Dead Poet's Society (Singapore)'s poetry writing competition, one of the three judges picked my poem "Not His National Day", as his choice. There were a total of nine entries. I would like to stress here that at the time the judges picked their favourite poems, they do not know the identities of the authors.
And the judge who selected my poem? Gilbert Koh. Yes, the same Gilbert Koh who won this year's Golden Point Awards for English Poetry. The GPA is a national literary competition.
When I read the post in the poetry forum, it was like "Wow! Oh my god, Gilbert has selected my poem!"
Reproduced below are Gilbert's comments on the poem, as it appears in the forum. Let me have my 15 minutes of fame, okay?
======================================
I liked Poem 1 and Poem 7 best. Neither poem feels completely "finished" to me - I think that they both can be further improved. But the main ideas driving these two poems definitely have poetic potential.
My Comments on Poem 1
I liked the arrangement of lines; the realistic feel of the poem; and the clever juxtaposition of the two contrasting scenes, which illustrates very well the sad situation of the down-&-out Singaporeans on the fringes of our supposedly affluent society.
"Shattered dreams" was somewhat cliched though. The last stanza has a problem with tenses - I think the poet should be sticking with the past tense. "Rippled in applause" was a nice phrase - I liked that bit. I also liked the arrangement of lines in the 2nd stanza.
And I vote for Poem 1.
================
And that's my poem!
Thanks, Gilbert!
posted by dsnake1 at 11:43 PM
10 Comments:
Yes, let's continue to learn from each other. :)
I also forgot to mention that the other 2 judges, Alvin Pang and Amy J. Grier chose your poem "Home Visit"! Congrats!!
Congrats again, dsnake. :)
thanks, liz.
That's great! I hope you're celebrating by writing more poems!
Heheh, your poem probably would have scored more points with Amy Grier if she was Singaporean. Some parts of your poem may not have fully appreciated by her, as she probably does not know that much about Singapore or the NDP. Eg the significance of details like "red and white" may be lost on her.
haha, patry, thanks!
yes, will be writing more, and maybe submitting some to on-line publishers (have not done that before)!
mr wang, thanks for your comments.
I guess the poem is too "local". Amy Grier, a foreign judge at the competition, may not have fully understand what I was trying to put across.
Sorry i took so long to get around to posting this
Congrats!
No problem, dude!
Thanks for coming back!
dun say just 15mins of fame, u want 15hrs also can! hehehee.....
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