parsetreeforestfire

by Hamid Roslan

parsetreeforestfire is a bilingual book of poetry in which poems in Singlish occupy one side of the book, and poems in English on the other. Conventionally such a book functions as a way for a person to learn a new language, but it remains to be seen if translation has successfully occurred, or if the book even intends to teach any reader how to speak either language. Instead, if poetry is intense attention to language, then this book can be considered to be the product of such scrutiny on the languages the book is written in.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2019

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating experience!! Although I didn't fully understand everything, I think it did me good to read this for my Intro to Poetry class, where I learned that it's also okay not to pick apart a poem and understand everything about it fully. It is also okay to let it wash over you and to enjoy the ride. And this was some ride! Not to mention the wonder I felt at the poems I was able to understand and break down. This was a musical and meaningful collection that challenged me to think about language, Singlish, English, and postcolonialism. My highlight poems: "Write statement for what" in "parse," "sayang sayang sayang" in "parse," and basically the whole of "forest!"

[غبار · Rating 5 out of 5]

how thrilling, to live in the same era as hamid roslan. this book – like no other in singapore, or in the world, as far as i can remember or imagine – reaffirms my faith, my curiosity in the astonishing possibilities of poetry, poetic form & language.

[Yifei Men · Rating 4 out of 5]

There seems to be a wave of young Singaporean poets, and Ethos books (and NLB) have done a good job making these works really easy to access. It's an exciting thing :)

Picked this up because of the very minimal but intriguing cover (and perhaps it subconsciously reminded me of my poetry teacher's collection House and Fire). To me, this is a collection where the intent and the gesture was stronger than the content. In many ways, it feels like it belongs in an art show more than a bookstore. It was evidently a very experimental piece of work, with lots of thoughts and intent behind it. The multiple explorations of physical juxtaposition of vernacular Singaplish with the more muted high-brow English was a very successful experiment (though the experience was slightly discounted on e-book format).

I would be happy to read what Roslan writes next.

[Artemis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed the ebook after a friend highly recommended this to me, and I think the ebook doesn't have the same experience as the physical book because the layout does get a little messed up, unfortunately!

I did want to like the book, but I think such an experimentation with language (English, Singlish, dialect, Malay, everything local) makes for an interesting, but not immersive, read for me. That being said, I can acknowledge that there are some really smart turn of phrases. For me, the "forest" segment was perhaps the most cheeky(?) one, for lack of a better word, where the poet let his own voice through.

Perhaps I'm still more of a traditional kind of lyric poet ahahahaha.

[Rachel Loh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking good luh. The use of Singlish was very smart and made me realise just how witty, intelligent and direct the language can be. In comparison with English, the book made me laugh but there was always a sense of sadness and helplessness...because what can a small island of people who speak Singlish do against English, our colonisers? The world? Definitely a book I will be revisiting.

[Stef · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Preposition was helpless: gravity is absolute, after all-though it is possible to be in several places at once even if no one is capable of describing the pain-that is the work of clauses, who in search of lost pronoun."

[Bobbinus]

While I might be ambivalent parts of the other sections, "forest" deserved a standing ovation.

[Rebecca]

It was really interesting reading poetry in Singlish. Not quite sure what to make of this but I appreciated how experimental this is.

[Q. Y.]

Intriguing poems. Different and unique. Very refreshing!

[s · Rating 5 out of 5]

can’t remember the last time i laughed this much reading a book

[Jee Koh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prodigiously intelligent in the procedures of poetry, it has not enough lived experience in it, for me. Still, this interesting debut makes me look forward to what this author will write next.