Golden Point Awards 2019

To plunge in or not?

photo by dsnake1



Golden Point Award 2019


Yes, it's back, the biennial Golden Point Awards, Singapore’s premier creative writing competition for Short Story and Poetry in its four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

I am thinking of participating in the English Poetry category. Presently, I am working on five poems, in various stages of editing. They are good poems, I think. City life themed, a bit dark, angry, violence just brewing below the surface before it erupts. There's always uneasiness with these types of works.

The deadline has been extended to 16 August 2019, which is good news for tardy and forgetful people like me.

Update (14/08/2019) : The deadline has been extended to 26 August 2019. Slightly more breathing space.

Update (29/08/2019) : The deadline has breezed by and I am still holding on to the poems. So no entries from me. 😦

Update (14/09/2019) : Feeling a tinge of regret. Should have send in those 5 poems. I think they are pretty good. With titles like these, why not?
- all the road signs
- no one thinks of politics when he is hungry
- nights on a thin mattress, redux
- my father's clothes
- slag
- the old gangster
😶

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SEND IN THE DAMN MANUSCRIPT!

- Reminder in my smartphone.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

i can see she is still pretty

Is this a love story? Or a breakup tale?

Last of the set I intended to send in for the Golden Point Awards 2015. Maybe it's better I missed the deadline?

image from pixabay





i can see she is still pretty


i have come back
to visit my lover
many years after i left.
it was a parting of necessity
i assured her
but she would not listen.
i didn't call you a bitch
certainly not,
maybe my language was inadequate
and we were young
and rebellious and hot headed
but certainly not a bitch.

but she would not listen
not the way one reads the words.
she had grown lovelier as she aged
fuller body
curves
scent of freshly cut flowers
ixoras in the sunshine.

then i told her i will leave
i will move on
i love her for what
i have learnt.
it may not be pretty
not always
but it certainly opens
my eyes.

and for the last time
i turn my back on her

walk her pavements
stub out my cigarettes
in her flower beds
linger at her bus stops
as i have lingered years before.



written 02.02.2007
revised 01.05.2015
******************



Years ago, I lived briefly in a neighbourhood in Jalan Bukit Merah. Vibrant, wild and dangerous at times, but also quite unlikely friendly, kind and compassionate. It was quite a ride and an eye-opening experience...

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"Things do not change; we change."

-- Henry David Thoreau


And if you have lost your way : Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

moths

I wrote this, intending to submit it (and a few others) for the Golden Point Awards 2015, a national writing competition. So I thought I would polish it up a bit, office work took its toll and the deadline breezed by (can you imagine it was three years already?). So yeah, forget it, I will just post it here (and the rest of the lot, if ..) Wonder how it will perform in the competition though. :)

drawing by dsnake1 done with Sketchpad 4.0




moths


i

When I was a small boy, my father would talk to me in hallowed tones about Dien Bien Phu, showed me from some Chinese magazines, the monochrome prints of tired soldiers, a landscape so scarred by shells it could well be the moon and parachutes in the air like thin black mushrooms. I do not understand why a battlefield in Vietnam could excite him so.


ii

My father had come to South East Asia, looking for their Ellis Islands, their torches bringing them to a new land, as insects attracted to light, growing roots, hear the fledgling politicians pounding their socialist rhetoric, taking sides, staking a claim on an opportunity, building a home from scratch.


iii

In time, i served this new land, i bit a cigarette too, dug foxholes in hills, filled sand-bags just like some French troopers, biting on their Gauloises, in some hell hole in South East Asia. Only difference was, i need not fire a shot in anger, our Anne-Maries, Beatrices and Isabelles were not trampled upon, and died.


iv.

Later I retraced my father's words, understood why Dien Bien Phu made him proud of his skin, why we may forgive, but never forget, even among our own creed. And why my parents made sure that their children do have an opportunity that they were denied. In time I understood all these, there was so much learning even in a house without electricity and running water...


v.

bright pressure lamp
moths come in from the night
to die


written 08/04/2007
revised 13/06/2007
revised 25/01/2013
******************

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“Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door.”

― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems


And a song if you are thinking of home : CSNY - Our House

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

before the next day

I wrote this poem for a national (Singapore) poetry competition, the Golden Point Awards 2007. It was the concluding work in a series of 8 poems that I sent for the competition. The theme was about the experiences I encountered while living in the Bukit Merah area, at that time, a gritty and rough neighbourhood.

I am posting this for Thursday Poets' Rally Week 44.

In case you are wondering, no, my collection did not win any prizes. :)

photo by Alvimann at morguefile.com



before the next day



the day is done.

vehicles swept past honking
angrily, red tail lights flaring
in the darkening dusk.

a light rain began to fall,
cold and unfeeling
on lengthening shadows

that glowering street lights
wrung from trees and metal,
smacking them down

on hard concrete
to writhe in jerky throes
in the scattering rain.

we walked in the drizzle
out of the prisons of
the factories, the warehouses,

not really caring,
glad that the day
is over and done,

that it rained in June
that our cigarette tips
still burn red and hot

in the cold rain,
smoke trailing like lost dreams
as the world winded down,

going home to a hot dinner,
to sons and daughters,
to soft moments with lovers,


before the next day catches up again.



22.06.07
********




© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2011

That's it.

photo by Aidairi
image from morguefile.com

That's it, folks. The 8 poems I sent for the Golden Point Award competition.

I wrote about a dozen for the competition, but I chose these 8. I thought these were the meanest and strongest of the bunch. Well, maybe it was not mean enough (or it was too loud for the judges' liking).

Another 3 or 4 that didn't make the cut are languishing somewhere in my thumb drive. Maybe one day, I will post those rejects too, if I should run out of ideas or steam. :)

not

Received a polite snail mail from The Arts House a few days ago :


Dear Mr Cheong,

GOLDEN POINT AWARD 2007

Thank you for your participation and interest in the Golden Point Award 2007

I regret to inform you that your entry/entries has/have not been successful.

Thank you for your interest in the competition. We hope that blah blah...

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image by dsnake1



The "not" is both in bold and underlined. Hmm, there goes the 15 bucks. Back to the drawing board. Or writing pad or keyboard. No regrets taking part though.

And all this means I can start posting my entries here. If I can just shake off this lethargy from this blogging break.

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And by the way, the winners have been announced. Just a tiny report on the 6th December issue of The Straits Times. Wasn't sure if it was reported in the other language papers.

Congratulations to Mr. Ma Huaqi, a literature undergraduate from the University of Queensland, Australia, who won the English poetry prize. Oh, yes, congrats to the other winners too in the other language sections and categories.

You can read about it here though there's no excerpts from the winning entries.

GPA Update

image enhanced by dsnake1
from a photo from freefoto.com



Golden Point Award 2007 update

Finally, it seems like a load has slid off my back.

Yesterday, I handed in my GPA entry at the Arts House. 8 poems, a couple which i have reservations about submitting, and a couple which in my opinion, are good stuff which will rock the judges.

Actually, I wrote about a dozen poems for this competition, the theme of which is about my stay at a place called Bukit Merah... Initially, I had no intention of participating, but after I decided to, I felt I had to deliver something. Some weeks were bad, nothing was written, but in the end, there was a manuscript

After I had submitted my entry, I went to sit down by the Singapore River for a while. This river holds fond memories for me. The first competitive poem I wrote was about it, and it won a prize for me. How the skyline and the shores have changed. More skyscrapers, the waters very much cleaner, but maybe it has lost some of the raw energy and cavalier character of the past. I was thinking, just like my poetry too. evolved, mellowed, the craft improving, and at times, regressing too.

So that's it, all I need to do now is to wait till December, when the results are out. And it may well be another non-event again.