By Yeow Kai Chai

If Pooja Nansi could be summed up in one word, it would be "connector." In her multiple roles as educator, performance poet and musician, she is blessed with the enviable knack of putting people at ease while speaking about matters of the heart.

To that end, her ruddy poetry says like it is, embracing her lineage as a child of migrants as well as a citizen of Singapore. Since making her debut on the literary scene with her first verse collection, Stiletto Scars (Word Forward, 2007), she has expanded her portfolio.

She has released a follow-up, Love is an Empty Barstool (Math Paper Press, 2013); co-edited SingPoWriMo, an anthology of Singaporean Poetry (Math Paper Press, 2014); and co-authored Local Anaesthetic: A Painless Approach to Singaporean Poetry, a teacher's resource published by Ethos Books in 2014.

Since April 2013, she has been helming Speakeasy, a popular monthly spoken word and poetry event, at Artistry, showcasing emerging and established poets from places as diverse as Burma and Botswana. She also runs the Singapore chapter of Burn After Reading, a platform for young emerging poets. Since 2009, she has also been one half of the spoken-word and acoustic music duo The Mango Dollies along with singer-songwriter Anjana Srinivasan. She is currently the National Arts Council-Nanyang Technological University writer-in-residence for 2015-2016.

She will next appear in the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) in a one-woman show called 'You are Here' directed by Joel Tan as part of Checkpoint Theatre's What I Love About You Is Your Attitude Problem. She will also share her hopes for the future in 'Imagine Singapore…' as part of the SWF Stage: Lecture Series.

1. What are you reading right now?
I am currently reading Kim Addonizio's latest collection of poetry, My Black Angel. It's a beautifully crafted book which features poems side by side with woodcuts done by book artisan Charles D. Jones of famous blues personalities such as Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Big Mama Thornton. It's also a little extra special because it is an autographed copy which was given to me as a wedding present by my friend, the poet Alvin Pang.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
Who would I like to be? Or let's face it, who would I really be? Because my fantasy self is Lady Brett Ashley from Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises who is described as "damn good-looking". She is also, damn witty, damn intelligent, damn good in bed and has damn good style. And she never ever settles. She lives for the pleasures of alcohol and sex. I can't help but fantasise about being a 34-year-old divorcée with the sexual confidence to sleep with a bullfighter fifteen years my junior.

In reality however, I'm probably a cross between Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby who is a reflection of my inner child – clumsy, spunky and more than a little mad – and Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility, who feels everything too much and falls for the wrong men.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I'm an extrovert.

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Cyril Wong because he is one of my favourite poets but also for our shared love of cake and all things melancholic; and Enid Blyton for creating the worlds I grew up with in my head. She is literally, my childhood.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
It certainly believes in me! Deadlines help a lot. But otherwise, I am patient with it, I let it be. I wash my hair, I listen to music, I read other people's words and wait for the writing to come back to me. Sometimes, it takes months, and that's okay, because when I'm not writing, I'm living the things I will write about.

6. What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Honesty, vulnerability, a sense of humour, the ability to say complex, ineffable things with one succinct metaphor or clean sentence.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
I tend not to like it when I can see writing trying to be clever or being too aware of its own cleverness. I tend to wrinkle my nose at any kind of posturing or anyone who takes themselves too seriously. And the worst, the absolute worst, is the humble brag. If you want to own something, just be obnoxious and own it.

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?

"Remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah"

– Leonard Cohen

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
Can never not dance or shout along when gangsta rap or 1990s hip-hop plays on the stereo.

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?
A tragedy, every single time. I love how alive melancholy makes me feel, I love the gentle and not so gentle reminders any kind of loss gives us about how transient and precious our time is. My favourite kind of tragedy, however, is the kind that also makes you laugh at how absurd and silly life can be.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
My favourite word, at the moment, is "glorious." My least favourite word of all time is "nipple."

12. Write a rhyming couplet that contains the following three words: "Gillian Welch", "grandmother" and "mango".

I dreamt my grandmother was Gillian Welch singing under a mango tree
I never felt music tugging so fiercely asking her to come back to me

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
My MacBook and a yellow 2B Chung Hwa pencil.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
Between 6am and 730am or between 11pm and 4am.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Shakespeare, Anne Sexton and Charles Bukowski. Because imagine the party.

16. As a former teacher, you have taught English literature to junior college students. Can you assess the way the subject is being taught in schools in Singapore – what's right and what could be done better?
I don't think I'm in a position to assess the way the subject is being taught across schools here, but being a Head of Department did give me some insight into how teacher training is an area that needs some attention. I think it's a problem when teachers aren't confident creating resources for texts and use that as a reason not to teach them. To me that indicates problematic subject mastery. On the flip side, I do think most teachers I've encountered are really passionate and want to include Singaporean literature in their classrooms. In some lower secondary classrooms especially, I wish teachers would stop teaching English literature as though it was reading comprehension. I could go on, but that's another conversation.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
I'm Hindu and I'll likely be cremated, but I'd like my ashes to be scattered while my friends scream my favourite profanities and have a drink.

Pooja Nansi will appear at two events at this year's Singapore Writers Festival. Her one-woman show, 'You Are Here (or a Guide to Planning an Indian Wedding in Singapore)', is part of the festival's overnight programme on Nov 7 at the Arts House called 'What I Love About You is Your Attitude Problem'. Together with Ho Kwon Ping and Bertha Henson, she will be in a lecture titled 'Imagine Singapore…' at Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre, Summit 2, on Nov 8 at 1pm. Tickets for both events from Sistic. For more information, please see the SWF website.

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