Koh Buck Song (b. 1963)
BIOGRAPHY
Koh Buck Song is a Singaporean writer and country brand adviser, and the author and editor of more than 40 books, with 10 books of poetry including A Brief History of Toa Payoh and Other Poems (1992), The Worth Of Wonder (2001) and The Ocean of Ambition (2003). The literary anthologies he has edited include Singapore: Places, Poems, Paintings (1993), and From Boys to Men: A Literary Anthology of National Service in Singapore (2002, co-edited with Umej Bhatia). He was Poet-in-Residence at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh under the Singapore-Scotland Cultural Exchange in 1992; the National Gallery Singapore’s Poet-in-Residence 2021-22, with poems and haiga works from this residency published in the world anew: Poetry and Haiga Inspired by Art in Pandemic Times (2023); and has spoken at literary conferences at Cambridge (UK) and Manila, and in poetry readings at Harvard University and MIT in the United States.
He is a pioneer in Singapore of the art form haiga (haiku with ink and watercolour sketches, modernised from 16th-century Japan). His poetry and haiga have been exhibited at the National Gallery Singapore, the Esplanade, the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, on Mass Rapid Transit trains, HDB Hub and LASALLE College of the Arts, and also featured in anthologies such as The Poetry of Singapore (by the ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information), Writing Singapore, Written Country: The History of Singapore through Literature and the travelogue Around the World in 68 Days: Observations of Life from a Journey across 13 Countries (2021). Internationally, his poetry has been published and reviewed in journals such as that of the Scottish Poetry Library Association (Scotland), Westerly at the University of Western Australia, and Solidarity (Philippines). His poems are studied in schools in the Philippines and in Singapore, where they have been set for exams for the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge GCE O Levels.
In the 1990s, he was The Straits Times’ literary editor and chief book reviewer, and also English Editor, then General Editor, of the literary journal Singa. At The Straits Times from 1988 to 1999, he was also political supervisor and chief Parliament commentator, arts and features supervisor, and Assistant Editor of Sunday Review, a weekly world affairs section. His regular opinion column, Monday with Koh Buck Song, ran for almost a decade. He launched and anchored the column This Week in Politics. From 2003 to 2004, he was a contributing columnist on global issues based at Harvard University in the USA for the Singapore newspaper Today. From 2004 to 2005, he was a regular columnist on leadership for The Straits Times. He represented Singapore as a media delegate in 1998 on the International Visitor programme in the US and at the Asia-Europe Young Leaders Symposium in Korea, and in 1999 at the Asia-Europe Young Entrepreneurs Forum in Germany.
As a country brand adviser, and author of Brand Singapore (third edition, 2021, longlisted for the Spirit of Singapore Book Prize in 2023), he has spoken on Singapore’s reputation extensively overseas, including as keynote speaker at the City Nation Place Global Forum in London, Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, Bhutan’s Royal Institute of Governance and Strategic Studies, Shanghai’s Fudan University, Melbourne University, and for the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council in Tahiti. He has been featured in the country brand-building initiatives of the USA, Japan, Bhutan, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Madagascar and South Africa. In the 2000s, he worked for the Singapore Economic Development Board in strategic planning and communications, and led a team to devise the “global entrepolis” brand for Singapore.
He read English at Cambridge University in the UK, and has a master’s in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School in the US, where he was a Mason Fellow, and was a speaker at the 10th Harvard International Development Conference, and also at MIT and Chicago University. He teaches country branding on the Executive Education faculty at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, where he was previously Adjunct Associate Professor for a Master in Public Management course in leadership. He has also lectured in media policy as Adjunct Faculty at the Singapore Management University’s School of Social Sciences.
His public service (for which he received a Special Recognition Award in 2002) includes being Deputy Chairman of the Censorship Review Committee 2009-10, after being a member of the Censorship Review Committees of 1991-92 and 2002-03, the only person to have been on all three panels. He has also served on numerous other citizen committees, including as a Board member of the Media Development Authority and National Arts Council, and Chairman of the NAC’s Drama Review Committee.
Author Photo and Biography © Koh Buck Song. All rights reserved.
