AS : Poems mentioned in analysis post from One Fierce Hour (1998)

Void Deck
By:Alfian Bin Sa'at

Where the neighbourhood wives,
After a morning at the wet market,
Sit facing the breeze
To trade snatches of gossip
About leery shopkeepers,
The local louts,
(Like that fella who's always drilling his walls –
Gives me migraine)
And that mad woman
Who throws things from her window.
With careful put-downs they
Fashion boasts, about stubborn sons,
Lazy daughters, who by some miracle or mistake
Always score well in class.
When words falter,
Gestures take over: pursed lips, rolling eyes,
Animated hands adorned by bangles of
Gold, jade, steel, string.
And children orbit around them
Laugh without diction –
Their games of tag a reassurance
That there has been no hothousing
Of who is unclean, unwashed,
Untouchable. When they break out
Into some kindergarten song,
One almost believes in a generation
Cleansed of skin-deep suspicions,
And free from the superstitions of the tongue –
And old folks sit like sages
To deploy chess pieces with ancient strategies.
In a corner, a caged bird bursts
With the song of its master's pride
And wrinkled women breathe, through
Tai-chi-tuned windpipes, the operatic melody of the air...
All a wanton fantasy.
Eyes reveal a meeting-point
For loners and loiterers:
A sense of things reduced-
Conversations that trickle through
Brief noddings at lift landings,
Teenage rhetoric scrawled, in liquid paper,
On the stone-table chessboard,
(Where the king used to sit)
The grandiose house-selling dreams of residents
Compacted in anonymous letterboxes;
As an afterthought, an old man pees
Under a public phone.
A place to be avoided, this,
How in its vastness it devours hours.
Little wonder then,
Why residents rush through void decks
Back to the cramped comforts of home
As if in fear of what such open space might do
To cosy minds.

Neighbours
by Alfian Sa'at

During Hari Raya she knocks on my conscience,
I knock on her door and I give her cakes.

She says she likes them and gives me
Sweets with gelatine inside. I throw them away.

Poor woman, dosen't know how to make cakes.
Her children eat Maggi after school everyday.

That's why the elder one is in Normal stream
And the younger one can't spell her name.

If I was her age I wouldn't be wearing shorts at home.
No shame, she dosen't know how to hide her womanhood.

When the children are naughty and I beat them
I close the door: I hear she's a gossip.

But she beatxs her children harder than I do
What to do her children are like that.

I once hear her scream she wanted to kill herself.
These people never value their own lives.

Other times I see her I smile and she smiles back
And her children smile and call me auntie.

But in our hands we hold with fists clenched tight
THe keys to our homes, each night we slam the bolt shut.

 Published in One Fierce Hour (1998)

AS : One Fierce Hour (a review)

Having borrowed a few of Alfian's works from the central library for this project, I find myself identifying most with One Fierce Hour (1998) This collection of poetry was Alfian's first published work of poetry. He was only 21 - still a student at NUS when it was published. The Straits Times hailed it as "truly a landmark for poetry [in Singapore]" Amongst the three books that I borrowed (the other two being 'Corridor' and 'History of Amnesia') I personally liked One Fierce Hour the most. Perhaps it was because as I read the poems I imagined a young Alfian - about my age writing these pieces and find myself in awe with the raw quality these poems possess. (Not that I should try, but if I ever tried to write poetry as I am now I would think they would end up looking like a bunch of big words glued together by pretentiousness.HAR HAR) As a whole collection, the poetry deals with a recurring theme of identity and Singaporean society. Alfian engages with many local spaces such as 'Void decks', 'Plaza Singapura' and HDB estates - this technique will later on become a trademark of Alfian's works as seen in his short stories and plays.

For my analysis,I will be looking at two poems from One Fierce Hour that align themselves with the heartlands in Singapore :  Something, I think both Alfian and I as a reader readily identify with.After all, I have lived in one my entire life. These two poems are 'Neighbours' and 'Void Deck'. Both poems to varying degrees carry a cynical if not sinister tone. In Neighbour Alfian presents the idea of duality and hypocrisy between neighbours who merely pretend to be civil to each other but beneath the cloak of force-fed harmony lies a snarky attitude that is filled with distrust. The structure of the poem clearly symbolizes this duality as each stanza is only two lines. What I find most striking in this poem is the imagery potrayed isn't very complex. In fact, as I read the poem  I actually feel like somewhere in my subconcious of all those years I've lived in a HDB flat, I have seen these things happen or have felt the same way about my neighbours. This familiarity I think is what makes Alfian's poems particularly stirring. Similarly in 'void deck' the imagery is even more commonplace - it is LITERALLY a common place (Sorry, I could not help myself) Images of 'neighbourhood wives' who are trading snatches of gossip and children running around the void deck playing tag - these are all very much ingrained in my memories although I wasnt really a 'tag' kinda person. My group of neighbourhood friends only played Block Catching (more advanced) In this way, Alfian's poems especially in One Fierce Hour and his other earlier works depend very much on this 'familiarity' or the intangible 'sense of place' attachment Singaporeans or people who have lived in Singapore will identify with. I am not sure if a foreigner reading this will get away with the same enriched understanding as I did... but I guess that's why Alfian Sa'at is lauded to be a TRULY Singaporean writer. Unlike other writers who may choose to write away from the Singaporean context,Alfian continues to cater to Singaporean readers - which I appreciate. I mean, of course I appreciate Keats and Plath when I feel like putting on a bonnet and drinking tea but I like it when as a reader the images come almost like second nature - literally like it's in my backyard. This,  I love.

Both poems also stay true to the collection's overarching theme. Both are extremely 'fierce'. Alfian Sa'at never shies away from telling the brutal reality.  In Void Deck, the poem's easy flow is broken by one line 'All a wanton fantasy' Immediately, the illusion of nostalgia of the happy things that happen in a void deck is broken and the poem continues as a rant towards the end of the poem. Similarly, this sinister nature of reality is potrayed in Neighbours as well.

Ultimately, I feel that these two poems are pretty much representative of 'One Fierce Hour' as a whole as well as Alfian's writing style and mindset as a young writer back then. In my opinion, Alfian was most outwardly fiery as a poet at least in this collection. He has not necessarily mellowed (let's hope he never does) but in his newer books there seems to be much more latent emotion expressed (trapped in imagery, or in symbols) rather than the outright confrontations he showed in One Fierce Hour. The most obvious example is 'Singapore you are not my country' which he shows no holds barred commitment to attacking the country. I for one, find the upfront confrontations refreshing. I like my poetry raw and genuine - which is what One Fierce Hour ultimately is.