Teo Poh Leng (1912-1942)
FEATURES / DEAD POETS’ SOCIETY
Written by Topaz Winters
Dated 31 Oct 2023
I’m so drawn to Teo Poh Leng’s “F.M.S.R. A Poem” for its understanding of what it means to be in transit: physically, emotionally, narratively, existentially. Teo writes of a nine-hour train ride between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur with a steady, undulating rhythm; a curiosity about language; a careful, cynical attention to sound, light, image, and colour passing by the train windows. “F.M.S.R. A Poem,” despite its Western influences—evoking the Lost Generation of American poets—is nonetheless a uniquely Asian poem. The sense of stagnancy coupled and juxtaposed with that of upheaval is profoundly compelling to me as a Singaporean-American writer who has lived between two worlds all my life. Even Teo’s explicit disgust of the “garish,” “stupid,” “hideous” landscapes he passes holds a sense of quiet devotion, an act of noticing—which is to say, of worship.
I’ve been taking planes since I was three months old. Sometimes I think I was raised by airports in all their hustle and distractions, their sense of having somewhere more important to be. When writing my poetic response to Teo, I thought about his description of Singapore’s “perpetual summer clime, / Wasting the tick-tack-tick / Of the windscreen-wiper on a rainy night,” and how the wall of humidity crashing into me as I step off the airplane is always the first indication that I’m home. I thought of the act of running towards, the act of running away, and the danger of mistaking the two. I first read Teo’s work on a December morning on the plane to Singapore; packing my suitcase the day before in New York, I pushed through the puffer coats and thick sweaters in my closet in favour of linen and flowing dresses. “Let the Record Show” is my response to that duality and my interpretation of the disillusionment that permeates Teo’s work: that even in leaving we find ourselves, again and again, in a state of perpetual, inevitable, agonising stasis.
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Let the Record Show
In the winter I pirated summer. Talk about bootleg. Sleight of hand. Even the bugs were fooled, came out of hibernation to thank me before freezing one by one into corpses of their own adoration. Am I supposed to apologise? For what—murder? Mythologising? Being three years overdue on my taxes? Haven’t I paid them tenfold in the thousands you’ll save on pest control? Objection sustained. Fine, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You know what was real? The rain. After I hid behind it I finally became popular. Everyone wanted to be my friend, but only in the story where I didn’t exist. Disappearing was the best diet I ever tried; I found suddenly I was very light & it was easy to make small talk around me. Judge, I swear this is going somewhere. It was summer, right? It was summer & my hands were black with frost. They saw me & felt no guilt. Yes, I once dreamt of being pretty. & when that happened? I dreamt of being dead. & then? Of being loved. Spare me the sympathy. What you need to know is there was a mirage that refused to wilt. It called me martyr, not deserter. I walked away & it didn’t follow. I could barely see for all the people who were trying to do better at loving me. If it weren’t for my hometown, I could have been God, made the bugs thaw back to life just to worship me through the rain. Are you writing this down? I’m not sorry for abandoning the season that named me. I still remember the colour green. The world didn’t end when I left, it just got bigger.
