This Is Not A Safety Barrier: An Anthology of Poetry & Photography
The city has never been ours; it is fleeting, a collection of habits and faint peals of laughter from glass towers.
The old rivers are covered up, disinfected, bricked. Still we flood, still we rumble our dissent; insufficient to overtake taste buds, just enough to tempt.
We are labels, numbers, we are queues. We are yes-men of yesterday’s news, multi-racial at convenient moments, diverse on GRC posters, silent when it counts.
The photograph questions our intent, the gaze an outstretched palm holding a question that need not be answered.
The poem, when set against the tarmac of public sentiment, becomes a cracked window letting in shards of concrete light, a certain discomfiture.
Our borders are porous; the search for identity, more so.
This Is Not A Safety Barrier is an anthology of 113 poems and photographs from 69 contributors.
Background to the Anthology
Singapore is a city constantly under construction, both physically and ideologically. Construction sites everywhere spot the ubiquitous red and white barriers demarcating that area as a no-go zone. Each one has a sign proclaiming, ‘This is not a safety barrier’.
Taking a leaf from this absolute phrase, the anthology presents a collection of poems and photographs that question and challenge the barriers in our country – whether physical, ideological or imagined. It is an artistic social commentary of what is defined and/or undefined, with questions, comments, and explorations into the journey of how one reacts in response to rethinking monolithic national narratives.
This Is Not A Safety Barrier: An Anthology of Poetry & Photography
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Poetry
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homesick
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womb song
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Patient History
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dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
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The Orchid Folios
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parsetreeforestfire
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Intruder
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Giving Ground
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Floating Clouds Beyond The Elastic Limit
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A Flying Crystal
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A Walk With My Pig
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A Bad Girl's Book of Animals
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GAZE BACK
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Picking off new shoots will not stop the spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021)
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Some Say, A Tapir
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Farquhar
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Poetry Moves: An Anthology of Poetry
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Contour: A Lyric Cartography of Singapore
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To Gather Your Leaving: Asian Diaspora Poetry from America, Australia, UK and Europe
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Teaching Poetry To Adolescents: A Teacher's Guide to Little Things (first edition)
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a tiny space
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Right of the Soil
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Common Life: Drawings and Poems
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UnFree Verse
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Lost Bodies: Poems between Portugal and Home
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This Is Not A Safety Barrier: An Anthology of Poetry & Photography
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I Found A Bone and Other Poems
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Me Migrant
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Phedra
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Spomenik
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Bitter Punch
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Singapore Notebook & Blessed Isle
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UNION : 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore
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Ars Poetica for the Day
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Do You Live In?
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The Wrong/Wrung Side of Love
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(Imperfect) Unhomed
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A Gathering of Themes
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Never Before—50 Essential Poems / 不可预期—诗精50首
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SG Poems 2017-2018
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A Crackle of Flames, A Circle of Rainbow
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Love at the Gallery
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SG Poems 2015-2016
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Pilgrimage
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Unhomed
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Crossing Universes
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一首诗的时间 2015
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Right of the Soil (Chapbook)
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Finding Francis: A Poetic Adventure
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Footfalls in the Rain
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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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