Description
Praise
About the Editors

The twin cinema, created by Singapore poet Yeow Kai Chai, is a rigid, yet spectacular poetic form that mixes constraint with possibility. Its twin columns can be read vertically down as discrete poems, yet you can also hop across the space between skyscrapers and find meaning that bridges the gap horizontally for each line. The twin cinema can be used to contrast two opposed points of view, or find a common bridge stretching across a seemingly insurmountable gap – the art of juxtaposition, after all, is at the heart of modern cinema.

In this anthology, poets from the twin cities of Singapore and Hong Kong tackle the challenge of the twin cinema form in tandem with their own interpretation of lines that bind or divide us. We share a familiar postcolonial history, rich financial centres and trading ports bustling with energy, in the shadow of a hinterland yawning across the water. Yet we also rival each other ceaselessly, and are cleaved by language, geography, and politics. This is fertile ground for a poetry of proposition or opposition – and may it grow cities.
"This is an anthology of poems written in the form of "twin cinema" (two facing columns), so each poem is essentially a three-in-one. The poems startle, delight, and disturb, and show that there's much more reciprocity than rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong."
—Gui Weihsin, literary scholar, in "My Book of the Year 2019", Singapore Unbound
Joshua Ip is a poet, editor and literary organiser. He has published four collections of poetry and edited seven literary anthologies. He is a recipient of the Golden Point Award, Singapore Literature Prize, and the 2017 Young Artist Award. He co-founded Sing Lit Station, an overactive literary charity that runs programmes like SingPoWriMo, poetry.sg, Manuscript Bootcamp, Book-A-Writer and several writing workshop groups.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London, UK. She edited Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology (2006) and coedited Love & Lust (Chameleon Press Ltd., 2008). She is also an assistant poetry editor of Sotto Voce and a founding coeditor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

Authors

Twin Cities