By Yong Shu Hoong

Eileen Chong was born in Singapore but now calls Sydney, Australia, home. In a review of her 2016 poetry collection Painting Red Orchids in the Sydney Review of Books, the poet Boey Kim Cheng writes: "In her fidelity to the real, and her attentiveness to the quotidian, to what can be grasped, experienced, and perhaps known, she stands apart from many of her more experimental contemporaries with their avoidance or fear of narrative, or anything with a whiff of sentimentality... Chong boldly embraces the empirical with her vivid mappings of experience and memory."

Chong's other poetry collections include Burning Rice (2012) and Peony (2014), the latest being Rainforest (2018). Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Anne Elder Award for a first book, the Australian Arts in Asia Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award.

Her poems have also been featured in Australian and international anthologies, including To Gather Your Leaving: Asian Diaspora Poetry from America, Australia, UK and Europe (2019), edited by Boey Kim Cheng, Arin Alycia Fong and Justin Chia.

Even when Chong is physically away from Singapore, it is never too far from her mind – for example, she has collaborated with photographer Charlene Winfred on Map-Making (2018), a limited-edition hardcover book of photographs and poems about Singapore. And she stirs a very Singaporean obsession with food into The Uncommon Feast (2018), which collates food-inspired essays and poems alongside recipes. In an interview for Centre for Stories, she said, "To paraphrase Wittgenstein, the limits of the world I grew up in were very much defined by the language of food."

  1. What are you reading right now?
I always have a few books on the go at any one time, and I like to dip in and out of them as my mood fits. Currently, I am reading Sharon Olds' Arias, Kathleen Jamie's Surfacing, Han Kang's The White Book and Felicity Plunkett's A Kinder Sea.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play, or poem, who would you be, and why?
I'm not really sure. I often feel like my own life is quite busy and complex enough without me wanting to be someone else. Maybe Lewis Carroll's Alice. The world is certainly confusing at the best of times, and sometimes, I'd just like to wake up from this bad dream.  

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I am a very serious person, because of how serious my work is. I mean, I am, but I am also quick to laughter, and I like frivolity as much as the next person.

4. Name one living author and one dead author you identify with most, and tell us why.
This is a hard question, because I don't like to choose just one or two, and besides, what does it mean to identify with someone, and how can we quantify the degree to which we do so? I feel strongly with regards to many creative works, and can often relate in some way to the creators, no matter what the work is.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
No, I don't. I think the process of writing doesn't just comprise the act of writing. Living is part of writing. If you're not actually putting down words on paper, you're just in a different phase of writing. So enjoy the moment, pay attention to what you're experiencing, and trust that the work will come in the right time.

6. What qualities do you admire most in a writer?
I like good writers to also be good people. I find it hard to admire good writing by writers who don't try to also be good people.

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

  8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
Philip Levine wrote to me once, saying, if you don't want to write, don't write. But if you must write, then write. He's right. No one is forcing you to be a writer. You have the choice. So if you don't want to do it, don't do it. But if you choose to do, then keep at it. It's that simple.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I…
can sing!

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?
I love science fiction, but failing that, action movies, especially kungfu!

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
I love the sound of the word "perspicacious". I find the word "like" very grating when used in the wrong context.

12. Write a rhyming couplet that includes the following three words: border, pillar, home.

A pillar marked the edge of the border
of the junkyard home of the hoarder.

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
I compose and write on my computer, so I do need my laptop for the most part. I also like to print my work out to mark up any changes in pen.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
The time of day when you are writing.

15. If you had a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Joanne Burns, Judith Beveridge and Jane Hirshfield. Because they are my friends, and if it were my last supper, I should like to share it with them in company and friendship.

16. Your latest poetry collection, Rainforest (2018), is divided into four sections: East, South, West and North. How do you think poetry can help to chart directions in the current unsettling times, in a world divided by the Covid-19 pandemic?
It is hard to feel relevant at a time like this, but of course, art can be comforting, redemptive, and also a vital record and reflection of human experience. So much of poetry speaks to the indomitable human spirit. I feel like poets, in particular, already know what it is to walk with death, and pain, and so what the world is experiencing is not new to poets. Perhaps poets will be part of those who can help others process the grief, the fear, and also the joy in these difficult times.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
I don't think I'll have one.

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