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
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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.
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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,...
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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...
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