Cyril Wong: The Interview
I don’t know how it began, and yet I get the sense that I’ve always been this way; a part of me standing outside of the tumult of the self, prepared to surrender or merge with something infinite. This division surfaces in my writing in various ways. In hindsight, I’ve noted that a meditative quality emerges particularly when the writing engages with love or death, during which the poetic speaker or character in a story enters a dance with the ineffable, consciously or otherwise, through the use of metaphor, argumentation or narrative atmosphere; while the writing itself remains caught up in the particulars of autobiographical to fictional relationships or memory. Impermanence becomes the threshold from which language bridges into transcendental insight. There can be no meditator in meditation, so writing becomes a means of effacing the speaker, even as the text always starts with an authorial self, a narrator, a persona. I’ve become more alert to this quality in both my writing and my everyday life over time, marrying a certain spaciousness in more conscious ways, whether through literal meditation practices or meditation-as-writing.
I don’t know how it began, and yet I get the sense that I’ve always been this way; a part of me standing outside of the tumult of the self, prepared to surrender or merge with something infinite. This division surfaces in my writing in various ways. In hindsight, I’ve noted that a meditative quality emerges particularly when the writing engages with love or death, during which the poetic speaker or character in a story enters a dance with the ineffable, consciously or otherwise, through the use of metaphor, argumentation or narrative atmosphere; while the writing itself remains caught up in the particulars of autobiographical to fictional relationships or memory. Impermanence becomes the threshold from which language bridges into transcendental insight. There can be no meditator in meditation, so writing becomes a means of effacing the speaker, even as the text always starts with an authorial self, a narrator, a persona. I’ve become more alert to this quality in both my writing and my everyday life over time, marrying a certain spaciousness in more conscious ways, whether through literal meditation practices or meditation-as-writing.
Cyril Wong is a poet, fictionist, and critic based in Singapore. He has twice been awarded the Singapore Literature Prize, has published 13 poetry collections, two novels, two short story collections, and an array of other work. He was gracious enough to discuss his work, the role of cosmopolitain literature, his advice to new poets, mediative states and their affect on writing, and much, much more!
Before the interview you told me that you’ve been in a meditative state lately. Can you tell us more about how you reached this state and how it has affected your work?
I don’t know how it began, and yet I get the sense that I’ve always been this way; a part of me standing outside of the tumult of the self, prepared to surrender or merge with something infinite. This division surfaces in my writing in various ways. In hindsight, I’ve noted that a meditative quality emerges particularly when the writing engages with love or death, during which the poetic speaker or character in a story enters a dance with the ineffable, consciously or otherwise, through the use of metaphor, argumentation or narrative atmosphere; while the writing itself remains caught up in the particulars of autobiographical to fictional relationships or memory. Impermanence becomes the threshold from which language bridges into transcendental insight. There can be no meditator in meditation, so writing becomes a means of effacing the speaker, even as the text always starts with an authorial self, a narrator, a persona. I’ve become more alert to this quality in both my writing and my everyday life over time, marrying a certain spaciousness in more conscious ways, whether through literal meditation practices or meditation-as-writing.
Your poignant short story, The Lake Children features spirits. Whether they are real or not, what do you think we can learn from the idea of spirits or ghosts?
That we are impermanent. Not just our bodies, but how we think about our bodies and our relationships to other bodies and the spiritual dimension that animates them. The idea of “spirit” is just that, an idea, or an introduction to a spectrum of possibilities of what “spirit” or even “consciousness” can mean. By empathising or connecting with any kind of spirit, real or otherwise, we begin to seep into the unknown.
Your PhD thesis discussed, among other things, “states of multiple belonging” in cosmopolitan literature. How have states of multiple belonging in your own life affected your work?
I belong and fail to belong anywhere. I could play the “victim” (a politically correct trend) and talk about how (as a queer subject) I speak from the margins as one form of ambivalent belonging, or I could displace myself entirely by stating that I no longer possess a wish to belong anywhere. The ancient Stoics advocated cosmopolitanism, the idea that we become citizens of the world. The Stoics don’t exist anymore. By not seeing myself as belonging anywhere, perhaps my sense of belonging is already “multiple”—I belong everywhere and nowhere.
What was it about the works of Kazuo Ishiguro and J. M. Coetzee that led you to analyse them for your thesis?
I found a pattern of overlapping themes across their novels that engaged with the ways in which globalisation was evolving during the period of their publication. My argument was a bit of a stretch, but I’m still convinced that a better scholar could show how these novelists critiqued capitalist modernity in relation to the world, by writing novels that were simultaneously “cosmopolitan” (in terms of how cosmopolitanism subverts commonplace notions of “globalisation”) in their themes and also “cosmopolitan” (when protagonists become universalised signifiers or symbols of the conflicted self in relation to the planet) in the structure and tropes of their writing.
What are your favorite poems written by someone other than yourself?
Louise Glück’s “Celestial Music” and Arthur Yap’s “your goodness”.
What are some poetry lines that you cannot get out of your head?
From Louise Glück’s “Celestial Music”: “The love of form is a love of endings.” From Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment”: “To call myself beloved, to feel myself / beloved on the earth.” From James Tate’s “Teaching the Ape to Write Poems”: “You look like a god sitting there. / Why don't you try writing something?” From Morgan Parker’s “All They Want Is My Money My Pussy My Blood”: “I am a tree and some fruits are good and some are bad.”
How do you know when a poem or short story is complete?
When I no longer care to continue editing it.
This image, and all others in this interview, were provided to Poetry Culture directly by Cyril Wong.
“Our individual voices only become clearer when refracted through all the voices that mirror us.”
What does your writing practice look like—do you have a defined time or place to write? Is it when inspiration strikes? Or something else entirely?
It used to be that I would stare at a blank page on my laptop for half an hour every night. Once I entered my thirties, I only wrote when inspiration struck—usually while inside a moving vehicle, or on the toilet.
Given your experience growing up in the catholic church, and your later success as a writer, what is your view of the Bible as a work of literature?
It’s convoluted fiction.
Are religious themes present in your work? Your poem Childhood seems to use walking on water as a bridge towards your father, who nonetheless remains out of reach.
I think the metaphors and tropes of Catholicism are ingrained in my subconscious whether I like it or not, thanks to my conservative family upbringing. I try to subvert them now or re-write them (whether about walking on water, forbidden fruits, the tenderness of the beatitudes) in ways that make sense to who I am in the present time; I do this mostly to heal wounds and internal divisions or connect with a beloved Other.
How do you see Singapore’s status as an English-speaking, multi-ethnic country in Asia affecting its literary output?
Singaporeans speak many official (and unofficial) languages and even our English-use is layered with ever-changing and syntactical nuances. I like to think that all of such elements shape the way literature (of any language) is written here. Just in the scope of English-language literature alone, the evolving inclusion of a growing diversity of cultural backgrounds and contexts (not merely divided along the lines of ethnicity) can make our literature seem schizophrenic, frenetic and breathless—not a bad thing.
What advice would you give to beginning writers or poets?
Read the writers or the poets who grapple with the same things that matter to you. Find other writers of your own generation and read and celebrate their work. Read and keep reading before you even begin writing a single sentence. Our individual voices only become clearer when refracted through all the voices that mirror us.
What are you working on now and what can we expect to see from you in the future?
Just more poetry; surreal, meditative, self-excavating poetry.