Common Life: Drawings and Poems
“Most things in the world around us have poems hidden in them waiting to be revealed if we have the will to pay attention and see them with the heart.”
— Anne Lee Tzu Pheng
With crayons and stained paper, artist Ho Chee Lick wanders around neighbourhoods in Singapore observing, perceiving, looking for that “something”: quiet and unremarkable objects and scenes of basic everyday life. One day some of his drawings came into the hands of poet Anne Lee Tzu Pheng who rediscovers the quiet beauty of these captured moments and explores their story with her words.
Common Life is a visual and poetic journey into territories the mind often finds too familiar to excite feelings or thoughts. Every purchase comes with a complimentary copy of Enjoying Common Life: A Companion.
Common Life: Drawings and Poems
Slide to see
Paperback
$28.00 SGD
E-book
$28.00 SGD
Reviews
Common Life makes it quickly irrelevant to tell where images end and poetry begins. Each of Ho Chee Lick and Anne Lee Tzu Pheng’s paired responses to the ordinary calms both the eye and the heart. The deep beauty in what they spy leaps out like moonlight on things. This collaboration is as flawless as it comes, among the most satisfying I’ve experienced in ages. —Gwee Li Sui, poet, artist, and literary critic
As a comic fan as well as graphic novel artist, it is indeed fortunate to come to know Common Life. This book weaves me in and out of the pictures and words beautifully in between them. From Bukit Batok to Bedok, Simei to Serangoon, it brought back some vivid memories for me. Though most of the work are done in crayons, it is amazing to see how Chee Lick could create a broad array of styles; one scene reminisces of Wu Guanzhong's ethereal landscape (Waiting, Page 146-147), another echoing Egon Schiele's distorted figure (Youth, Page 142-143). Binding with Ann's seemingly simple yet spiritus verses it touched my senses and fills me with the joys and sorrows of this place we call home. Such is the true beauty of this work. —Koh Hong Teng, graphic novelist and author of Garden of Foolish Indulgence
Poetry
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$16.00 SGD
womb song
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Patient History
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$18.00 SGD
dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
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$19.00 SGD
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$19.00 SGD
The Orchid Folios
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$16.82 SGD
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$16.82 SGD
parsetreeforestfire
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Intruder
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Giving Ground
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$19.00 SGD
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$19.00 SGD
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$19.00 SGD
Floating Clouds Beyond The Elastic Limit
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$19.00 SGD
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$19.00 SGD
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$19.00 SGD
A Flying Crystal
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$19.00 SGD
A Walk With My Pig
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$18.60 SGD
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$18.60 SGD
A Bad Girl's Book of Animals
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$16.82 SGD
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$16.82 SGD
GAZE BACK
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$5.61 SGD $9.35 SGD
(Imperfect) Unhomed
E-book
$0.00 SGD
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$21.00 SGD
Picking off new shoots will not stop the spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021)
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Some Say, A Tapir
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Farquhar
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Poetry Moves: An Anthology of Poetry
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$20.56 SGD
Contour: A Lyric Cartography of Singapore
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$28.04 SGD
To Gather Your Leaving: Asian Diaspora Poetry from America, Australia, UK and Europe
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$28.00 SGD
A Gathering of Themes
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$14.00 SGD
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$14.00 SGD
a tiny space
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$17.00 SGD
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$17.00 SGD
Right of the Soil
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$28.00 SGD
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$28.00 SGD
Common Life: Drawings and Poems
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$25.00 SGD
UnFree Verse
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Lost Bodies: Poems between Portugal and Home
Paperback
$18.70 SGD
This Is Not A Safety Barrier: An Anthology of Poetry & Photography
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$18.00 SGD
I Found A Bone and Other Poems
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$12.00 SGD
E-book
$12.00 SGD
Me Migrant
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Phedra
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$18.60 SGD
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$18.60 SGD
Spomenik
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$16.00 SGD
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$16.00 SGD
Bitter Punch
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$10.00 SGD
Singapore Notebook & Blessed Isle
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$25.00 SGD
UNION : 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore
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$16.00 SGD
Ars Poetica for the Day
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$16.00 SGD
Do You Live In?
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$19.00 SGD
The Wrong/Wrung Side of Love
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$21.50 SGD
Babel Via Negativa
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$18.00 SGD
Teaching Poetry To Adolescents: A Teacher's Guide to Little Things
Out of stock
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$18.60 SGD
Never Before—50 Essential Poems / 不可预期—诗精50首
Out of stock
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$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2017-2018
Out of stock
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$11.21 SGD
Love at the Gallery
Out of stock
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$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2015-2016
Out of stock
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$14.00 SGD
Pilgrimage
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$9.35 SGD
Unhomed
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$9.35 SGD
Crossing Universes
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$18.60 SGD
一首诗的时间 2015
Out of stock
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$10.00 SGD
Right of the Soil (Chapbook)
Out of stock
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$13.00 SGD
Finding Francis: A Poetic Adventure
Out of stock
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$14.95 SGD
Footfalls in the Rain
Out of stock
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$20.00 SGD
Light is like water
Out of stock
Attunement
Is life hustling you out of tune? As the week roars by, we invite you to a slice of attunement penned lovingly by our authors, friends, and yours truly. Freshly delivered weekly with care. Intimacy guaranteed. Read selected letters below.
Magical, luminous things
Feb 19, 2022
I have flown across an ocean this week. This still sounds surreal to say.
Read more
No negotiation for blood debt
Feb 14, 2022
The Burmese language resistance poetry is deeply embedded in the country’s colonial past. When mo...
Read more
Burning holes in the darkness
Feb 7, 2022
Poets killed in broad daylight, writers tortured and maimed. I wonder if their ghosts watch on fr...
Read more
