Synopsis:

A Luxury We Cannot Afford: An Anthology of Singapore Poetry
edited by Christine Chia, Joshua Ip and Cheryl Julia Lee
published by Math Paper Press
a collaboration with #WRITERSRESIST

What does the future of Singapore hold?

In 2015, the anthology A Luxury We Cannot Afford commemorated 50 years of man-made myth - 50 years of mysteries and ministries, Marxists and memorandums, the Merlion and The Man - and whether the 1969 assertion that "poetry is a luxury we cannot afford" still held true in the 2010s.

But instead of looking back, this companion volume to the first looks forward to everything SG51 and beyond. It is a collection of bold narratives of Singaporeans shaping their own future, a cornucopia of hyper-modern dreams of robots and aliens, yet also tales of muted despair at a future slipping out of touch with the past. We still believe that language freely expressed has its own means to create freedom, and has the power to transform the world - in this we stand in solidarity with all writers in the face of events across the world.

In the face of a fraught, uncertain future, there is no longer any need to debate whether poetry is an unaffordable luxury. In times like these writers are the ones who must step up and reimagine possibility, speak out for hope and humanity, and inscribe the circumference of our soul. In this 2017, poetry is:

...a luxury we must afford.