Making Room: The Writer’s Toolbox

A friend of MWS takes in a painting by MG Kumar at the Art x Poetry Exhibition.

My last talk of the year: a keynote at the annual camp of Hwa Chong Institution’s English Literature, Drama, Debate & Film Society (ELDDFS). I was invited to share my thoughts about responding to social issues through the arts – what follows is an edited version.

Last weekend, I spoke on a panel at the Art x Poetry Exhibition – a collaboration between Aestheletic (an art gallery), Poetry Festival Singapore, and Migrant Writers of Singapore (MWS). Some of you will be familiar with MWS: a ground-up collective of writers from many different national and language backgrounds. They’ve organised book fairs, photography competitions, theatre performances, and even two Mental Health Festivals, all to bring people together through the arts.

For this exhibition, the Migrant Writers came together with a handful of local writers to respond to pictures of the Singapore River by veteran painter MG Kumar. MG Kumar honed his craft in India, and has since relocated here along with his family. His paintings deliberately foreground the migrant workers of colonial Singapore – coolies, convicts and craftsmen who built the city we know today. Likewise, the Migrant Writers’ poems placed their perspectives at the centre of their responses, of a city which they work to build and maintain on a daily basis.

During the panel discussion, we talked about how important it was for the voices of migrant workers to be heard. Not just at events like these, but for their presence and perspectives to be part of every Singaporean landscape we imagine, in the arts and literature. Think for a moment: how many of the Singaporean poems and novels you’ve read include characters who don’t look and sound like you? Surely, our works of literature should reflect more than than a postcard view of Singapore.  

Then, one of your seniors who happened to be in the audience asked an excellent question:

“Is there a conflict between representing the perspectives of marginalised communities in art, and the fact that many of them may never get the chance to see this art – or read a novel in English, or be part of this conversation?”

Her question touched on a set of deeper concerns, which I’d like us to think about today:

• “Can art/writing truly bridge the divides and inequalities in society?”

• “Can art/writing uplift the disadvantaged in ways that truly matter?”

And finally:

• “Who is the audience for our art/writing, and why does it matter?”

These questions, which are all related, take us beyond what we normally see as the technicalities of writing – plot, characterisation, imagery, pacing… all of which are still essential in helping us build believable worlds – into the real world where our writing must live and breathe. To me, they are no less important parts of a writer’s toolkit.

 I could only give your senior a brief answer last weekend, to the effect that: “yes, there is indeed a conflict, and that’s why the writer’s work never stops at the end of the page, but extends into the communities we dwell within”.

This afternoon, I hope to give you a fuller version of that answer. I’ll start with what I consider to be the writer’s work, then share some of the tools that I’ve added to my toolkit over the years, in the hope that as all of you continue in your writing journeys, you’ll hone these and other tools for yourselves as well.

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First: What is the writer’s work? This is a question that has sparked wars in literary circles, and I don’t intend to get tangled in them today. But you’ll see that history has given us a range of answers:

(A non-exhaustive list…)

For a start, writers have been divided as to how far their work should engage and make a difference. Emerging from the strict controls of church and state in early modern Europe, many of the Romantics believed in ‘art for art’s sake’ – a focus on individual expression and aesthetic sensibility. As Edgar Allan Poe put it: “under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

In time, though, others felt that this idea of ‘art alone’ didn’t go far enough, especially if those traditional structures of power were still in place. Particularly among writers who had weathered brutal oppression, there grew a sense that writing could speak with a wider moral force. For the Polish writer Zbigniew Herbert, who had come of age under Nazi occupation and Stalinist rule, the poet’s job was to “bring everything into question” – if only because, in his words, “poetry lives longer than any conceivable political crisis”.

Following in their footsteps, writers of various political persuasions have brought their own values to bear on how exactly writing should remake the world. Should writing seek to remind us of family, community, and national values which seem threatened by change? Or should writing seek to represent social realities and imagine better alternatives? The debate rages on.

I tend to place myself somewhere in between. For me, it’s not so much about picking a side, as recognising that the use of our voices – which give us the ability to connect with others, convey our hopes, and commit to this or that belief – are, to begin with, a privilege. After all, our voices don’t exist in a vacuum. They engage with other voices, and as they do so, we begin to realise that not every speaker is given the same time and space to be heard. Some are amplified and applauded; others are shouted down, or silenced. As our voices echo back to us, we realise the room is not empty. We are not alone.

It is every writer’s responsibility to make sense of the space in which you are speaking. Who else occupies it? How far have they travelled to get here? You may be someone for whom speaking up, putting your voice out there, has always felt easy or natural. This won’t be the case for everyone, but my guess is that most of you here this afternoon might fall squarely into that camp. But imagine if your first language, your familiar places, and the TV shows you watched growing up were all different. How much more difficult would it be to make your voice heard, then?

Once you have made sense of this difference, this unequal space of speech, ask: how does it make life better or worse, easier or more difficult, richer or poorer, for those who inhabit it? And you – you with your loud voice – how are you going to use it?

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Ultimately, the work that we have chosen for ourselves as writers involves grappling with our own voices. This means reckoning with our own place in society and the world, and making choices: about whether we will preserve and shore up that position for ourselves, or use our voices in sensitive and strategic ways to tilt the balance for others. Both of these may well be necessary, depending on where we stand. But as we find our place in the room, we must also think about how to make room for others.

Now all this would seem easier said than done, without some practical tools for ‘making room’.

The first, the act of bearing witness, emerges most directly from the practice of writing. When I say this, I don’t mean locking yourself in your room and channelling your thoughts onto paper or screen. I am referring to the underrated first step that takes place before any writing begins: the act of observing keenly and honestly what is taking place in the world around you, and allowing this to lend shape to your writing.

When I mentor younger writers, it’s often easy to tell who’s writing about people and places they have known personally and taken the time to observe, and who’s writing – as it were – directly from the imagination. Observation requires us to be careful, humble, open, and empathetic. It often requires a great deal of hanging out and talking to people. Sometimes, it also requires a great deal of research, time spent in the library or on the internet, but also on foot and with an open notebook. All this, before the writing starts.

If there are communities you care about, treat them no different than others in your life you care about. Your first instinct should never be to write about them. Instead, let your first instinct be to sit with them, spend time with them, celebrate and cry with them, much as you would for your loved ones. Good writing arises from a genuine involvement in the life of a community, so much so that when you finally set pen to paper, you can bear witness to this from as close a second-hand perspective as one can ever have – that of a confidant or friend – without laying claim to it as your own.

The second element in the writer’s toolkit is your ability to create access. As you start to share your writing with your friends and mentors, and become enmeshed in a larger conversation or network of writers, many of you will find doors opening: opportunities to share your ideas and your work, or to speak to larger and wider audiences.

At this stage, as a younger writer, all this may seem quite far off. But by virtue of your education, your citizenship, and your privilege – and with a little luck and a little trying – many of you will find yourselves moving in larger and more influential circles than today. Others will ask for your views and opinions, or invite you to contribute to workshops and anthologies. You might find yourself back here, speaking to the ELDDFS.

The question is, what will you do with these open doors? Social media has turned out writers who are adept at promoting their own work, and indeed, your publishers and agents will expect you to do so. So many of the successes of the writing life are so hard-earned, that we should never begrudge our fellow writers a good celebration. But when it’s your turn, what will you do with your platform? Think of it as the difference between stepping through an open door yourself, or holding it for someone else to enter first. The graciousness to say: “thank you for inviting me, can so-and-so speak as well?”

Last but not least, these first two acts – of bearing witness and creating access – would not be sufficient on their own, if we did not also do our best to create an audience that is not only comfortable with, but expects, no, demands to hear a rich, diverse and more balanced set of voices.

The easiest way to do this is to be part of that audience yourself. Whenever I attend MWS events, I am struck by how few Singaporean writers there are in the audience: there is a misconception that events featuring migrant voices can only be for migrant audiences. But all events should include both migrant voices and migrant audiences, alongside local voices and audiences. Likewise for all our books, and songs, and films – wherever Singapore is depicted and imagined, we should expect the full gamut of languages, backgrounds, experiences, and identities that make up Singapore.

The first step to this is turning up. Cast your net wide in what you read, listen to, attend, and celebrate, invite your friends, and be part of that audience. Then, if given the opportunity, do your part to enlarge that audience: whether by volunteering behind the scenes, spreading the word, or creating new spaces and platforms that are welcoming of different voices: there’s plenty you can do.

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I’m looking forward to your questions, but allow me first to end with a word of caution.

In some ways, all this will never be enough. It will not be of any surprise to you by now – just a year or two away from graduation – that the world you’re about to enter is marked by difference and unfairness. No matter how much room we can help to make, by using our own voices, or by creating the conditions for others’ voices to be heard, there are many areas of unhappiness where we will barely be able to make a dent.

Ultimately, the world of the arts is one that remains marginal in many ways, and even the successes achieved there may not translate into change – at least in terms of material conditions, for those who long for it.

But even so, and nonetheless: with the voice you have, with what you can do, I hope that you will not let this be for lack of trying.