INTRODUCTION

I don't know why I decided to do this. This is my life's work, after all. Oh well, we all start small. Let's get to the point: this blog is all about my poetry. Ok, I know it may sound like small potatoes to you, and maybe it is, but it's big stuff to me. Actually.... this blog consists of only 10% of all the works I've written in verse form in my entire life. The other 90% are simply too sensitive for public eyes to see. Let's keep it at that, shall we?

I started writing back in December 1998. I don't exactly know what on earth possessed me to buy that black A'Zone notebook with silver trim (which looks really neat, by the way), pick up a pen and start writing in verse. I guess it's because..... lots of people make fun of my voice without really listening to what I have to say. For some reason my pseudo-Brit accent (Irish maybe?) have people up in stitches and somehow possess them to make fun of my voice. Why, I once worked at a 7-Eleven before I donned camouflage uniform to serve the country. Three 14-year old girls from a nearby girls' school (which I shall not name) poked fun of my voice and imitated it when I told them how much they owed. Bloody b**ches.

Ok.... pretty long detour there. So anyway, I decided that the only way for my true voice to be heard was through written script. For some reason, I chose to write in verse instead of continuous prose.

Therein lies the irony. While I chose to make my voice heard through written verse, this meant that few people would hear it. After all, some of the pieces I wrote are a little too... volatile to be made known to the world. Some of them would cause quite a bit of a scandal, to say the least.

I named the first book The Thin Black Book. Well, it's a little unimaginative (give me a break.... I was just fifteen at the time), but somewhat full of meaning.  Black is the colour of secrecy, and I've got lots of secrets uncovered in the book. You can start to unravel what goes on in my mind just by reading it (which of course, you can't). Though I can't type out everything out of practical and privacy issues, I can give some excerpts, which I shall provide in due course.

I eventually produced a total of 30 poems and 8 songs. I'm musically illiterate, so my songwriting is, for all purposes and intentions, lyric writing. I thought my days as a poet would end there, but I was wrong. I went on to make a sequel: The Book of Flying Colours. I'll explain more in due course.

Eventually I decided that I was going to make a whole series of books. I needed a title for the series. At first I came up with The Dead Poet's Epic, but nixed it as it was too ostentatious and somewhat copyright-infringing. The name The Books of Seasons was then floated, but I decided that was a bit too simplistic and immature.

Then, one day I saw an ad for The Beatles' Anthology Album. I finally came up with a name worthy of the series based on that ad. Henceforth the series was known as:

The Anthology of Seasons.

Later still after I had written several books I decided it would be better to split the Anthology into several sections. For lack of a better word, I called these sections Parts. Each Part more or less covers a defining era in my life: Upper Secondary, Junior College years, and National Service Full-Time. Each Part consists of three books and are named as such:

Part I: Fifteen Minutes of Fame (Upper Secondary)

Part II: The Days of Future Past (Junior College Years)

Part III: Driven (National Service Full-Time)

Part IV: Ad Astra Per Aspera (NUS Undergraduate Years - WORK IN PROGRESS)

Onward to the poems, then. I'm sure I've bored you enough with the structure. It's very important, though. I'll elaborate more.

STRUCTURE OF THE ANTHOLOGY

Part I: Fifteen Minutes of Fame (December 1998 – January 2000)

Some wise guy (I forgot who) once said that in the near future, each and every one of us is going to get his or her fifteen minutes of fame. Now, I wrote this Part from December 1998 to January 2000. Basically, I wrote most of it in 1999. Now, 1999 was my fifteen minutes of fame. I achieved so much in so little time. I don't want to sound as though I'm bragging, but that's what that exactly happened. I did really well in my studies, lots of people began to see past my accent and accept me for who I am, yada-yada, so on and so forth. Sec 4I, if you're reading this, perhaps you know what I'm talking about.

Book I: The Thin Black Book (December 1998 – April 1999)

I already wrote about this in the Introduction, so i won't bore you further.

Book II: The Book of Flying Colours (April 1999 – September 1999)

I wrote this book in mid-1999. As I had said earlier, 1999 was my fifteen minutes of fame. I also felt that I was passing the test of life with flying colours. That's how I got the inspiration to name the book as such.

Book III: The Little Book of Reflections (September 1999 – January 2000)

I started to mellow out as time passed. I thought a lot about what I've done in my life so far, where I've been and the people I've met, and so I decided to reflect on what's been going on in my life so far in this book. When I look into a mirror, I'm not sure exactly what is being reflected back at me - my true self or something I want to see? This book deals a lot with both issues.

Part II: The Days of Future Past (January 2000 – January 2002)

I'll admit it: I ripped off the title for this Part from a saga in Marvel Comics' The Uncanny X-Men. The plots for the saga are pretty complicated, and suffice to say it involves travelling to the past to prevent a terrible future from happening.

I guess that's where the apparently grammatically-challenged title comes from. Instead of talking fondly about the days of times past, we end up talking about the days of a future which is already past. In these books I visualise how it would feel like if my future counterpart were to go back into the present time to prevent terrible things in his time. That's one of the reasons why we should make most of the present and learn before it's too late...

Book IV: The Book of Seasons Past (January 2000 – August 2000)

The title of this book uses more or less the same imagery behind the title of the Part. It deals a lot with my past, which wasn't exactly the proverbial bed of roses as some might imagine. Let's just say that it's not something I really want to put on this blog. If you're lucky enough, I'll tell you more about it sometime. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.

Book V: The Book of the Open Road (August 2000 – May 2001)

When I started writing this book, I was feeling somewhat blue. Not THAT kind of blue. I was feeling rather down. Sometimes I'm not too sure exactly what it is I'm fighting for and felt kind of... lost.

I decided that I had an open road in front of me. One that is fraught with danger, terror and God knows what. The path could also be full of joy and happiness if that was what I really wanted. I realised that while we can never be sure what we may encounter as we walk the path, that's not much of a reason to refrain from doing so. We should just make the best of whatever that is thrown at us.

Book VI: Shadows of a Time Remembered (May 2001 – January 2002)

When I got around to writing this book, I grew sick and tired of the repetitive sounding 'The Book of....  '. I decided to discard the usual way of naming the books. In addition to sounding less boring, this gave me more leeway as to what the books should be named.

Now, as I said earlier, I've got my own personal demons from my past. I know everyone's got their own demons, but mine still hound me every now and then. There's always the shadow of a past I always want to forget falling on me.

Part III: Driven (January 2002 – April 2004)

If you guys read my personal blog, The Web of Fudge (there's a link on the right-hand side of the webpage) then all of you would have known that it was the love for a girl that proved to be the driving force for me. It was the only thing which prevented me from giving up in the face of difficult odds, and kept me from going insane.

However, I find myself continually wondering whether it's worth it to carry on fighting for the sake of someone else. I know fighting for the sake of love is a noble cause, but it doesn't feel right that I'm not fighting for myself. Especially after I graduated from school and joined the army and she left the picture. I think I lost a lot of my drive after that. I was driven by my love for someone else, and now, I'm not so sure what I should be driven by.....

In addition, I felt that the title had a very raw and brutal feel to it which correctly exemplifies the harshness and audacity of my National Service Years.

Book VII: The Wheel of Possibilities (January 2002 – November 2002)

I was inspired to name this book as such after listening to several lines of the song 'Out of My Head' by Fastball. It goes as follows:

Sometimes I feel
That I am drunk behind the wheel
The wheel of possibilities
However it may roll

I felt that the above lines described my current situation perfectly. I find myself hard-pressed to explain what it is that's been my driving force these days. I also sometimes make choices and decisions which do not always turn out right. You can say that I was drunk while making some of my decisions. Not in the physical sense of the word, anyway.

In addition, the third line fits in perfectly with the driving imagery I used in the title of this Part.

Book VIII: The Story of Hope (November 2002 – September 2003)

I started writing this book just as I joined an infantry battalion as a front-line medic. It was terrible, to say the least. The only thing that kept my spirits up was hope. Hope for the future. Hope for better times.

The Anthology proved to be an excellent outlet for whatever anguish and misery I felt. However, The Anthology is not the story of misery. It is the story of hope.

Book IX: As Tears Subside (September 2003 – April 2004)

If you read the introduction to Book VI, you would have known that at that point in time I was in a state of perpetual frustration and rage which threatened to overcome me. Eventually I calmed down some, but I'm rather ashamed to say that a small part of it lingered within me for some time.

As time passed, however, after going through more than a year of army life I found myself questioning the wisdom of allowing sadness and simmering rage into my soul. It doesn't make sense to shed tears of sadness and rage all the time. Sooner or later, you're going to have to carry on with life.

And that was precisely what I did. There's no point in hating anyone who may have wronged me in any way. Hatred only keeps the wounds open, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be better to just let it be? Let those who wish ill of me find their own way. I am on the path. I shall never let anyone who strays from the path to lead me astray as well.

Henceforth there will neither be tears of sadness, nor tears of rage….. Hopefully.

Part IV: Ad Astra Per Aspera (April 2004 -  )

As all of you can see, Ad Astra Per Aspera is a work-in progress. It is meant to cover the first few years of my undergraduate life at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Ad Astra Per Aspera represents a departure from the other Parts in many ways. For one, the title of this part itself is a Latin phrase. To the uninitiated, it roughly means, “A Rocky Road Leads To The Stars”. Simple, yet profound, isn’t it? The irony of the title is that I ripped it off from a scene in the no-brainer movie ‘Armageddon’ (1998).

Anyway, the title is self-explanatory, so I won’t go into much detail here. A journey full of strife and difficulties can eventually only lead to greatness and glory. As much as we do not always want to have to face difficulties in this journey that we call life, it is only through these difficulties that we get to see just how strong and resilient we can be.

This Part marks my departure from teenage life and into adulthood.

Book X: The Return to Innocence (April 2004 - December 2004)

After 2 ½ years of positively slogging through an infantry battalion as a front-line medic, I’ve had many experiences which have shaped me in many ways. At the same time, some of those experiences have also shaped me in ways which I would never accept, for better or worse. I lost most of my sense of innocence and precociousness when I was the Army. Don’t laugh, people…. Those 2 ½ years roughened me up worse (in some ways) than the difficulties of my teenage life.

Now, after all this while, I have survived.

Now, I can return to my innocence….. and my peace.

Book XI: Snow Does Fall On Africa (December 2004 - )

The inspiration behind this title comes from a certain verse in the famous song 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' by Band-Aid:

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life