By Yeow Kai Chai

Among the generation of Singapore poets who rose to prominence in the mid-1990s, Aaron Lee Soon Yong is probably the most discreetly contemplative.

Preferring the discursive to the disruptive, he pursues his concerns on matters of the heart and mind in his own quiet ways. He isn't prolific – but every book of his is thought through and duly feted. His first poetry collection, A Visitation of Sunlight (1997), was voted one of the year's best books by The Straits Times. His second collection, Five Right Angles (2007), was shortlisted for the 2008 Singapore Literature Prize.

Together with Alvin Pang, he co-edited two influential poetry anthologies, namely No Other City: The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry (2000) and Love Gathers All: the Philippines-Singapore Anthology of Love Poetry (2002).

Lee's work has been published internationally and performed at international festivals and conferences. 2014 will see the publication of his third poetry collection, Coastlands, which explores of the idea of a spiritual "home".

A banking lawyer and a writing mentor, he is married to the artist and educationist Namiko Chan.

1. What are you reading right now?
I'm usually working my way through several books at the same time. It's my way of ensuring a balanced diet. Currently I'm reading a novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler; a poetry collection Small Hours by Chen Yu Yan; and a treatise titled Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully by John Piper.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play, or poem, who would you be, and why?
For many years I'd have answered Sherlock Holmes, my favourite literary character. Nowadays I realise I could never reach those heights of intelligence. So, I'd say Father Brown, the priest from GK Chesterton's short fiction series. This unassuming amateur detective realises that in any conundrum, the key puzzle to be solved is why people behave the way they do.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
My busy routine gives people the impression that I'm driven and hardworking. Actually I tend towards sloth and lethargy.

4. Name one living author and one dead author you identify with most, and tell us why.
Like the American immigrant poet Li-Young Lee, I go in search of the numinous beauty of the everyday, moments that transcend mere description.

The late American novelist Chaim Potok, whom I had the pleasure to meet, wrote a book that impacted me greatly as a young writer. Titled My Name is Asher Lev, it was a wrenching, compassionate story about a tortured artist. I am not particularly tortured myself but I do know some struggling artists and I can understand some of their plight.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
I've experienced it. One of my poems took seven years to write. My first and second poetry collections were published 10 years apart. I try to overcome writer's block with sustained periods (weeks or months) of scribbling random words, fragments of lines, word associations, just getting anything on paper in fits and starts, until it starts to flow again. Quite often I wonder if I will ever write again.

6. What qualities do you admire most in a writer?
Clarity of thought and brevity of expression.

7. What is one trait you deplore most in writing or writers?
Showiness.

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
I always carry within me some lines by the poet Joe Salerno that go, "Poetry is the art of not succeeding;/ the art of making a little ritual/ out of your own bad luck, lighting a little fire/ made of leaves, reciting a prayer/ in the ordinary dark."

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but…
I really enjoy cooking (I'm not a good cook, though). Perhaps, as a creative process, I consider cooking to be similar to writing poetry.

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy, or an action thriller to watch, which will you go for, and why?
It depends on my mood, but I'd say two times out of three I would pick the action thriller. I love the genre, but the movie must be well made and character-driven.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
"Home" is my favourite. It means the world to me. I don't have a least favourite word.

12. Write a rhyming couplet that includes the following three items: hula hoop, painter, gavel.
A painter judged the sports contest, grasped a wooden gavel.
The winner's hula hoop rolled by, scrunching on the gravel.

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
My notebook. I always have it on the desk in front of me as I work on the computer, even if I hardly refer to it.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
Late at night, after the wife has gone to bed.

15. If you had a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
After thinking about this for a long time, I nominate the authors CS Lewis and Ray Bradbury, together with Asher Lev (the tortured artist in Chaim Potok's novels). I'd cook – we'd all be dead shortly after anyway – and we'd eat, drink and have good conversation. We could try to solve the mystery of human nature, and let our imagination run free in anticipating life after death.

16. You're among several lawyers in Singapore who write creatively. Why do you think the legal profession breeds creative writers? And who are your favourite lawyer-writers, here or overseas?
I suspect that some lawyers find joy in a certain ability to use words as heightened speech, as a way to make the audience care deeply about what they say. Among lawyer-writers, Daren Shiau is one of my favourites. His writing is pierced through with an evocative simplicity. Simon Tay's poetry was a guiding light for me at the time I began to take my own writing seriously. There are quite a few good exponents of the legal thriller genre but I think Scott Turow is the master.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
"I am a song in the mouth of my Maker."

_____