Marc Nair

On Image-Making

Painted Light 4

Always a camera on the table,
always memory carded in its side,

the lure to capture some unspoken
angle in ordered frames, as if these

dimensions can tell the whole story in
double exposures. Time blurs the sea;

Painted Light 2
what is beyond is never considered.
Slow down the blinking shutter

so everything illuminates in well-
composed lines, grid-eyed, pleasing.

Painted Light 3

The aperture ring opens to its full yawn,
the moment snaps, shutting out neutral

densities, displeasing shadows, higher
definitions pixelated against purpose.

That’s all it ever is, isn’t it – a room left
in light, dots on the page, a grain of truth.

Painted Light 1

My sixth collection of poetry, Spomenik, was launched at the Arts House on Saturday, 12th March 2016. It was a milestone for me, as this is the first time my poems and photographs have been published together.

The poems and photographs are interwoven together in the book, and while one can read them individually, they are best seen as complementing each other.

Spomenik is the Croatian word for monument, and I envisioned the art in this book to be a series of monuments that speak of my journey through the Balkans.

I had a fantastic emcee and friend in the lovely Michelle Martin, who governed the session with aplomb and perfect timing, and I’m extremely grateful to the able team at Ethos Books, who decided to take a chance on this very left-field idea and bring it to completion. My thanks to Mr Ethos himself, Fong Hoe Fang, for first being convinced and subsequently Kah Gay, Suning and Adeleena for patiently shaping and crafting the work until my vision was realised.

Here’s a video from Six-six News, where I read one of my poems from Spomenik. Enjoy!

Past the Gates of Socialism

You can pick up a copy of Spomenik online, or at selected bookstores around Singapore.

Litprom 2016

It was a busy weekend at Litprom, the Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American Literature. The 2016 edition of the festival, with the theme ‘New World Literature and the Global South,’ featured 12 authors from Asia, Africa and South America. Together with Amanda Lee Koe from Singapore, we joined a distinguished bevy of writers on a range of panels and discussions.

Just before the festival, I had the chance to speak at the Metropolitan School Frankfurt to a very endearing and enthusiastic bunch of 9th and 10th Graders about the power and value of poetry. I think my rendition of Dog TV had them thinking about the possibilities of seeing the poetic through the mundane.

Then I had the great pleasure of hanging out with Dirk Huelstrunk, the grandfather of poetry slam in Frankfurt. A true pioneer of slam in the city, nowadays, he trucks in his own cadences, merging sound art through words and loops. The soundscape is emotive, charged with dissonance and urgency and we worked on two pieces, Camera Be and Well Done, which we performed as part of the closing act for the festival. I helmed the rest of the evening, doing favourites such as Made in China and O Holy Torrent as well as newer pieces such as Kenny G. The latter was accompanied with a mash up of Kenny G’s tunes, to much hilarity.

The festival was held over a rainy, windy weekend in Frankfurt. A buzzing business city at best, it empties out during weekends, and the weather seemed to follow, dropping to -5 degrees Celsius in the mornings.

Sometimes, the best conversations were held over mealtimes. One memorable lunch I had was with Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa and Brazilian fictionist Luiz Ruffato. We traded stories about ludicrous festival experiences, including one being stuck on a cruise boat floating down the Amazon for a whole week. The audience was a bunch of older women, constantly making ‘literary’ advances, like piranhas circling for the kill.

I had the chance to walk briefly around in the drizzle on the day after the festival, snapping a few photos, and deciding that monochrome best fit the mood of the city.

Still Life with Suburbia

Still Life of Suburbia Phoenix, Arizona. 2015.

Advent

Another year, and He has not returned.

The baubles are spun, presents delivered,

the manger dusted, animals arrayed

for one more party, and so we wait, frayed

ends of fairy lights blink on familiar

trees, what new xmas blessing holds us dear

as we hark the herald on silent nights,

Bethlehem a soft dance on tongues, a flight

of wise men under starsong. As shepherds

shuffle to angels singing praise, the world

pops bubbly cheer, worrying in another

year, raising pagan prayers to remember

echoes of a kingdom built on promise;

He will return on a holy night’s kiss.

Smoking Poetry at TedxSingapore 2015

I was honoured to be a speaker at this year’s TedxSingapore. It was the largest ever Tedx held here, with 1,700 participants coming to catch two days of energetic, awe-inspiring speakers. I was amongst hallowed company with luminaries Hans Rosling and Tony Wheeler as well as local heroes like Gwee Li Sui, Randolf Arriola, Crystal Goh and Eugene Soh.

Here’s my contribution; a treatise on why poetry seems to have a problem, and what we can do about it.

https://youtu.be/ANA93BojE3I

Camera Be

camera bewaking

Camera Be

Camera be waking
Camera be watching
Camera be filming
As we are drowning

Camera be loving
All of our living
The joy and the grieving
Camera be scheming

Camera be
All that we see
Camera be
In you and me

Camera be dreaming
Unfocusing sunshine
The dotted blue line
Of security signs

Camera be keeping
Random memories
Are we now frenemies
Camera please tell me

Memory card is full
Format, delete, edit
Memory card for fools
Forget, defeat, omit

Camera bewaking
Camera believing
The lies we are telling
The eye of our failings

Camera be
All that we see
Camera be
In you and me

Number (for Myanmar)

I wrote this poem a while ago, but am posting it up now in honour of Myanmar’s historic 2015 election results.

Number

I will stop being a number, and start being.

20102010 was the first World Statistics Day, and I learned that
1.03 billion people are undernourished and 1.15 billion people are overweight.
1.4 billion people don’t have clean drinking water, while 80% of the world
believes God exists; it must be all those who have clean water.

For once, the number crunchers could slice a perfect pie chart
Of how many soldiers it takes to overrun a country and keep
Statistics unknown. But we do know that
Numbers are the natural fall-out from any disaster.
When Cyclone Giri landed in Myanmar right after World Statistics Day
It took out 100,000 homes and affected a quarter of a million people.
UNICEF still needs 2.1 million dollars, but that’s one number people are quick to forget.

I will stop being a number and start being.

32 per cent of the people in Myanmar walk below the poverty line,
Villages take weekly turns to have electricity in their homes one week out of two.
Temples are plated gold with millions from rulers who own the natural gas reserves
and elections are nullified with the third largest standing army in Asia.

Because numbers only quantify, they can never measure the degree
of joy to hear someone say, you are free, or a father faded like
a photograph of a better country, or simply speaking of peace to
the crowd who cannot be counted, whose numbers reach for the right

to stop counting the number of decades a country has been
downtrodden, to change hearts and raise people on their knees,
to build together a bright collection of strange victories,
which is the translation from Burmese for Aung San Suu Kyi.

I will stop being a number, and start being.

Private Citizens

LowResprivatecitizensposter

I’m super stoked to be headed to Amsterdam to perform and exhibit poems together with three other amazing artists on 9th and 10th October at A-Lab in Kulter.

I’ll be exhibiting haikus and photographs from a series titled ‘A Rush of Caffeine to the Head’ and performing a spoken word set around the theme of ‘Private Citizens.’

We are also raising funds to pay for things like transport, equipment rental and exhibition costs, so do contribute if you can!

Private Citizens on Indiegogo

Etiquette

This is a homage (or not), to the etiquette that binds us when we communicate. It might be more informative to say, ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your lunch. I had a sandwich, what did you consume?’ instead of the mundane, I hope this finds you well…

Etiquette

Dear reader,

I hope this finds you well.

I hope you’re not sideswiped with a sore throat, or frazzled with flu.

I hope a fever is not bleaching your brain, every sentence broken and out of joint.

Dear reader,

I hope this finds you well,

Or maybe not, you might be shot, caught in a bear trap on the rap for bad debt, or straining to take a crap, I don’t care, though politely I must peel a piece of personal trivia to show empathy. Something about your passion project on 3D printed condoms for third world countries, how’s it going? What do you call it? Rubber meets the road?

Dear reader,

You aren’t really my dear, any more than a deer in the woods is no closer to a MacDonald’s drive-through, Any more than btw fyi imho rtm could also be a line of spam, or a message from your boss.

We say these things out of etiquette, coded alphabets, a best of slow rock album that has to have Bryan Adams and Scorpion. Our tongues are fine tipped lines of poison. These are the songs we have chosen, to sell you spells in thoughts of hell, silver bells and cockeyed shells. I hope this finds you well, please don’t tell, because you only get one exclamation mark. It could be used for the obligatory congratulatory sub sub point, or to feign interest in a well curated Pinterest.

Dear reader,

You told me to please revert, so noted, with thanks.

On my flanks, in my shanks, noted with thanks

Close the ranks, run the banks, noted with thanks

Let’s be frank, need a spank? Noted, with thanks

Dear reader,

My bullets points are leaden with leading lines, my subtext an incendiary mine, my signature speaks in sine wave, my drafts autosave. I will not hire or fire or wire money via this message, but I might quote you a line from a Wordsworthy passage:

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine

Best regards… What exactly are best regards?

Do they have little booties on them, a bow tie? Discount codes?

Just wondering, no response needed.