Paul Tan’s fourth collection shuttles between two metropolises. In Tokyo, the new and the picturesque compete with the alienation of cosmopolitan life, while in Singapore, the familiar often sharpens the irony and cynicism of urban society.
At turns epigrammatic and thoughtful, or self-doubting and witty, these poems are a reminder of poetry’s ability to connect the deeply personal with the larger narratives of country and culture.
Paul Tan Kim Liang is a poet and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the National Arts Council. He graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he won the NUS Literary Society Poetry Competition’s first prize in both 1992 and 1993.
Under the Singapore Literature Prize, his debut collection, Curious Roads (1994), won a Commendation in 1993 and his second collection, Driving Into Rain (1998), was awarded a Merit in 1998. Tan has since published three more collections of poetry, First Meeting of Hands (2006), Seasonal Disorders/Impractical Lessons (2014) and When the lights went off (2018).
Prior to being appointed Deputy CEO of the National Arts Council, Tan served as director of the Singapore Writers Festival from 2011-2014.
