by Samantha Koh

As I was searching for newly published local literary material to review for this assignment, I chanced upon a familiar name – Jollin Tan, and her newly published collection of poetry, Bursting Seams. I couldn’t shake off how familiar that name was so I did a Google search on her and it turns out that she is a fellow NUS Lit major, and we’ve done several modules together! Obviously, knowing that my contemporary has already established herself as a poet in the local literary scene, where I, on the other hand, have done nothing for my dreams of publishing a children’s novel, I spent about 2 minutes reveling at my stupendous underachievement and lack of talent. But it’s okay. I got over it. I ate a cupcake and moved on with my life.

Instead of getting a copy of Bursting Seams, I instead stumbled across Jollin’s blog where she posts a collection of her personal and or published poetry (the link is below). I have to say that I was amazed. Jollin engages the physicalities of the body to the semi-spirituality of words, thus producing a wonderfully intimate and raw account of her every day life through poetry. Most of Jollin’s pieces draw a huge focus on the human frame such as ‘MY BELLY’, ‘Trapped’, and ‘Sentimental Value’ just to name a few. Her work seems to draw to attention a fundamental desire for transcending the body, adopting an ethereal and other-wordly nature. In fact I find some similarities her writing and Pooja Nansi’s body of work in Love is an Empty Barstool. Both Jollin and Pooja engage the senses in an intimate way through their simple yet earnest way of using words and imagery.

Here is an extract from one of my favourites from her work. I feel that this piece accurately captures the importance of form and physicality in her poems and how she so delightfully manifests her emotions in poetic and linguistic style:

Love    is the                           lacework
in         my            blood
I cannot unravel,
and your hands
weaved
it into my        veins.
Your    nimble, unconscious             fingers,
are tangled
in my              nerves.

Jollin Tan
— from Bursting Seams by Jollin Tan

Her words are simple, but the emotions conveyed, complex. I desire so much to see more local writers bravely venture to adopt such a similar style of writing, stripped of its pretenses, coming as they are – sometimes raw, unpolished, but yet so pure and true. It was also wildly refreshing to veer away from the topic of culture or modernization in the local literary scene to maters closer to the heart. I feel like there seems to be an invisible hand that forces culture onto every Singaporean writer or producer when really all we desire is to communicate the things that are personal and hidden.

Jollin is such an inspiration to me. Being only 21 (my age!!), she has achieved so much, not just as a poet but more so as an individual. To be able to articulate her emotions in such beautiful poetry is definitely something to be given attention and merit to. So maybe after eating more cupcakes, I too will step on my dreams and start taking practical steps to writing my own children’s novel. Who knows?

signing off,

Samantha