Joshua Ip, Singapore
if calories are a western construct,
do they still count? if fat is a racial
predilection, should the sugar content
of a dessert be governed by an ethnic
committee? is this sentence just how
grammar used to make it? to what extent
is this all an exercise in branding? know your
place, bro. if you milk your dialect ─ those intolerant
of accent will be up in arms, and is a petri-dish
probiotic really patriotic? by which i mean
if a spoonful of yogurt contains multitudes
of culture, when are we due for a post-colon
cleansing? is the reason for your slow movements
a lack of moral fiber in your diet? is the beef
you have with this origin story grass-fed? we cannot even
walk on it, let alone smoke it. if left in dark
and damp conditions where the sun don’t shine,
is this growth sustainable? which of these
metaphors are truly free-range and ethically sourced?
to what degree is it appropriate to apply taste,
if your application is in oral appropriation?
if this literature is the basic building block
of a balanced diet, if this literature is atomic,
why do we measure it by shelf-lives instead of half-lives?
you can lose one, as if an arbitrary
amount of weight, temporarily.
the other can only decay but will never die.
Joshua Ip is a poet, editor and literary organiser. He has published four poetry collections with Math Paper Press, won the Singapore Literature Prize for his debut, sonnets from the singlish, and placed in three different categories of the Golden Point Award. He has edited nine anthologies, including the A Luxury We Cannot Afford and SingPoWriMo series. He co-founded Sing Lit Station, an overactive literary charity that runs community initiatives including SingPoWriMo, Manuscript Bootcamp, poetry.sg and the world’s first wrestling/performance-poetry hybrid, Sing Lit Body Slam. He received the Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council (Singapore) in 2017. He can be found at www.joshuaip.com.