The Viewing Party
Winner of the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize for English Poetry
Singapore Literature Prize winner Yong Shu Hoong’s latest book features more than just poetry. There is also a ghostly tale at its core, complete with prose poems and micro fiction of exactly 100 words each, as well as annotated excerpts from an abandoned work.
In this viewing party, readers are invited to take a peek into the domain of death and cinema. You are part of a mob of dispassionate onlookers. Sometimes, you get to play the voyeuristic judge.
The Viewing Party
Slide to see
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
E-book
$18.00 SGD
Reviews
“There’s a warm easiness to Yong’s voice that’s balanced by a sharpness of insight. He cuts through the layers of familial and social habit to the unseen images and urges that give the mundane the sheen of the numinous. If the book is a viewing party, Yong is a genial and attentive host, inviting us in to absorbing scenes of everyday curiosity and surprise.” —Jen Crawford, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Creative Writing Programme at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
“...a gentle, spacious, and insouciant lyrical commentary on life's little passings... This has, of all Yong's books, the most rewarding frame over a selection not just because of its ambitious, philosophical bent and self-consciousness - rather, we get a sense that the writer has finally understood his place in literature and found the right moment where our private considerations open into something deeper and larger than ourselves to meet us.” —Gwee Li Sui, literary critic, poet, and graphic artist, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore
“The Viewing Party, a collage of poetry and prose, skilfully explores the penumbral worlds of death and the cinema. From funeral wakes to the darkness of the picture house, Yong draws us into intimate spaces where distinctions between "witness" and "voyeur" slowly fade out. ” —Mags Webster, Cha, Asian Literary Journal
Recommended Books
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Little Things: An Anthology of Poetry (second edition)
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
E-book
$18.00 SGD
homesick
Paperback
$12.00 SGD
E-book
$12.00 SGD
What Gives Us Our Names
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Why Palestine?: Reflections From Singapore
Paperback
$24.00 SGD
E-book
$24.00 SGD
Delicious Hunger
Poetry
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
E-book
$18.00 SGD
homesick
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
womb song
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Patient History
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
The Orchid Folios
Paperback
$16.82 SGD
E-book
$16.82 SGD
parsetreeforestfire
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Intruder
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Giving Ground
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
Paperback (autographed)
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
Floating Clouds Beyond The Elastic Limit
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
Paperback (autographed)
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
A Flying Crystal
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
A Walk With My Pig
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
A Bad Girl's Book of Animals
Paperback
$16.82 SGD
E-book
$16.82 SGD
GAZE BACK
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Paperback
$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
Paperback
$20.56 SGD
Contour: A Lyric Cartography of Singapore
Paperback
$28.04 SGD
To Gather Your Leaving: Asian Diaspora Poetry from America, Australia, UK and Europe
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Teaching Poetry To Adolescents: A Teacher's Guide to Little Things (first edition)
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
E-book
$14.00 SGD
a tiny space
Paperback
$17.00 SGD
E-book
$17.00 SGD
Right of the Soil
Paperback
$28.00 SGD
E-book
$28.00 SGD
Common Life: Drawings and Poems
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
UnFree Verse
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$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
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
I Found A Bone and Other Poems
Paperback
$12.00 SGD
E-book
$12.00 SGD
Me Migrant
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Phedra
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Spomenik
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Bitter Punch
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Singapore Notebook & Blessed Isle
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
UNION : 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Ars Poetica for the Day
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Do You Live In?
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
The Wrong/Wrung Side of Love
Paperback
$5.61 SGD $9.35 SGD
(Imperfect) Unhomed
Out of stock
Paperback
$28.00 SGD
A Gathering of Themes
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
Never Before—50 Essential Poems / 不可预期—诗精50首
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2017-2018
Out of stock
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
A Crackle of Flames, A Circle of Rainbow
Out of stock
Paperback
$11.21 SGD
Love at the Gallery
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2015-2016
Out of stock
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
Pilgrimage
Out of stock
Paperback
$9.35 SGD
Unhomed
Out of stock
Paperback
$9.35 SGD
Crossing Universes
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
一首诗的时间 2015
Out of stock
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Right of the Soil (Chapbook)
Out of stock
Paperback
$13.00 SGD
Finding Francis: A Poetic Adventure
Out of stock
Paperback
$14.95 SGD
Footfalls in the Rain
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.
Practising Listening
Aug 14, 2025
Our language grows, and with it, new connections to things and creatures around us.
Read more
We Rise and Fall into Spring Blossoms
Jul 23, 2025
For years, pouring myself into this collection was an outlet to make peace with my past and also,...
Read more
Touch Some Grass
May 7, 2025
We’ve traded that sense of freefall for control, but maybe in the process, we’ve lost the autonom...
Read more
