CONTRIBUTORS

Troy Wong

Troy Wong is an Australian poet born to Singaporean parents. His work, written on unceded Dharug and Gadigal land, has been published in Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite, Island, Locative, The Marrow, Palette, The Suburban Review, and the anthology Solid Air. He is the winner of The Nomad Review “Fragility” Poetry Prize, an Australian Poetry Slam National Finalist, and the founder and creative director of Bread & Butter Poetry Slam.

i before e

My po po tells me to marry a woman who speaks Cantonese, a warning against miscegenation with western devils. This fence she draws around family is the outer limit by which I am to understand myself defined but what if …

Posted in 118: PRECARIOUS | Tagged

The Bronze Man’s Burden

A mantis shrimp can see four times our visible light spectrum but to excuse your colour blindness as only human was my mistake. Yours was knowing one fact about every animal and nothing about surviving a world that wasn’t made …

Posted in 117: NO THEME 14 | Tagged

gossiping in Singlish is a funhouse mirror

my mother’s country is so close to the equator everything sticks my saggy Cantonese tightens to a snakelike coil my clothes turn skin-clingy every uncle ashing into the gutter outside an MRT station while gossiping in Singlish is a funhouse …

Posted in 116: REMEMBER | Tagged

Three Durians

i. Singapore, early monsoon season. Your uncle comes home from the market with three durians in a plastic net, helpless and threatening as string-bound mudcrabs. He sets them out on a chopping block and splits them with a meat cleaver. …

Posted in 112: TREAT | Tagged

Notes from Fortune Cookies

Someone you know deserves the truth. A sharp tongue may be both a weapon and a tool. Wisdom is the lamp, good thoughts the oil, sweet words the flame spices the spoils of the British Empire, but still salt is …

Posted in 109: NO THEME 12 | Tagged

This Pigeon is a Big Man

My therapist wants to know if i was breastfed I have a short attention span and get bored easily My Mum yells abuse at me as i’m leaving for work One morning i move out and live in Granville I …

Posted in 84: SUBURBIA | Tagged