By Yeow Kai Chai

The Bard once rued about Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety."

The epithet can also be used to define the transgressive poetry of someone much younger, specifically Marylyn Tan, who identifies as a queer female poet and artist. Her debut collection, Gaze Back, is bracing and bodacious, setting itself apart from the tentative first works by many of her Singaporean contemporaries. Written from the margin, it feels its way through modern life with sass and rude ardour. The poet herself is acutely attuned to the tools of communication – the valedictorian graduated last year (2018) with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies from Nanyang Technological University.

Her intellect, thankfully, is grounded in a visceral response to issues rooted in the real world. Her poems probe social norms on femininity and physical attractiveness, twist forms, and adapt post-verbal languages (computer code!) to address taboo topics such as witchcraft and menstruation.

As a result, it can be tough (and endlessly fun) trying to figure out the thought processes that go into each of the eight pieces in her book. Her instinct is, more often than not, spot-on. 'Sexts from the Universe', for instance, works more like a visual arts installation, juxtaposing found words – odd advertising slogans such as "Do Not Kill Me With Your Shoes" and "You Will Be Surprised At Dirts!" – with snapshots depicting the original sources. In the last section of 'Unicode Hex', an ode to her dead grandfather, she isn't deferential to a fault, describing him instead as "a spongy concave/skull fragment/save the biggest shards for last/crown the dust in stubborn urn."

Tan has performed at Singapore Biennale, Singapore Writers Festival, SPEAK., and has been anthologised in A Luxury We Must Afford, Inheritance, and Asingbol: An Archaeology of the Singaporean Poetic Form.

1) What are you reading right now?
Touch, by Claire North. It's a suspense thriller that involves body-hopping entities and questions the nature of intimacy and beauty.

2) If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
I'd like to say I'm Bilquis from Neil Gaiman's American Gods, but the hard truth is I'm probably his Sam Black Crow from the same.

3) What is the greatest misconception about you?
It's a toss-up between being extroverted or enjoying casual sex.

4) Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Ryū Murakami (1952 – present), for his unflinching yet elegant treatment of the deviant and the unfulfilled.

Georges Bataille (1897 – 1962), for the Catholism, the erotism, the literature of the transgressive and the violence/pleasure enacted upon the flesh.

5) Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
No. I believe in not asking the right questions, or trying to force art through channels it does not want to go through.

6) What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Curiosity and a willingness to look the grotesque in the eye. A holding fast to principles while playing fast and loose with technique. Possessing an unerring sense of how to engage with both flesh and fancy.

7) What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Pandering to standards of safety. What safety is, however, surely varies.

8) Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
"Your silence will not protect you," by Audre Lorde, but bestowed upon me by the inimitable Divya Victor.

9) Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
…am frightened I might take myself too seriously.

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?
(Where is the horror option????) Hollywood comedy often falls short of the term, but I'm always on the lookout for that rare moment of laughter, whether intended or not.

11) What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
At the moment, my favourite is probably "anyhowly." It is a word. Language is use. I nominate "freaky" as least favourite.

12) Write a rhyming couplet that includes the following three items: wiggle, defenestration, leftovers.

your past missives' defenestration leaves startled space to bloom:
stale leftovers cockblock reframing without ample wiggle room

13) What object is indispensable to you when you write?
Get rid of the things you own before they own you!

14) What is the best time of the day for writing?
4am, when the world doesn't expect anything of you and the deadline is at noon later that day.

15) If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
The Baronness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, surrealist poet, feminist and sexual libertine – her love of the absurd and the clandestine would be, for me, a symbol and last reminder of what freedom looks like. CAConrad, magical witch genderqueer extraordinaire, prophet of the now, soothsayer of truths – I think any conversation with them would be instructive, especially upon the eve of such a transition. And how could any last supper be complete without celebrated tragic gay iconic wit Oscar Wilde?

16) In Gaze Back, you take on topics seldom covered in Singaporean poetry, ranging from occult symbolism to the queer female body to the use of computer coding. How did you arrive at this particular poetics, and are you surprised at how the book has been received so far?
The poetics of Gaze Back was a by-product of ruminating and wanting to delve into both that which leaves me feeling abandoned and that which emancipates. It proves the point Gaze Back makes – in that writing for myself, and for the endangered body, I found comfort in utilising the language of the unknown to speak the unspeakable. It has been more warmly received than I anticipated, simply because I think queer witchery remains quite the niche subject. I'm gratified and looking forward to the lovers and the haters.

17) What would you write on your own tombstone?
Do Not Disturb, BRB.

_____