David Wong Hsien Ming discovered poetry as a child at a Sunday lunch. His work explores the dualities, contradictions and absurdities of being, and has appeared on platforms like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Mascara Literary Review. His first collection, For the End Comes Reaching , is a meditation on the sense of loss that accompanies each having. In this interview, Jonathan and David discuss the beginnings of his journey in poetry, the compulsions and techniques that inform his work, and the place he sees himself occupying in the community of the Christian faith.
My family literally attended the same church most of my life. My Dad was an elder in his later years. I think most of his work was maybe in tone and culture in terms of fundamentally being a joyful, listening, comforting kind of presence. It was very much, as with a lot of these service-related roles, where I thought the good of what he brought as a person within our family, he then had to essentially bring that out for the whole congregation.
What was cool was that it showed me that being performative makes it no less honest and no less valuable. Even when I get angry at students, it actually performative. And then my Mum was pretty much the opposite. She was much more private. There were particular sorts who would be as withdrawn as she is, and she would become that anchor for this subsection of people. Jonathan: My next question is kind of tied to that because you wrote in your bio that you discovered poetry as a child at a Sunday lunch.
So not that it was bad. I just knew that was a crappy poem. Jonathan: Was there something that just compelled you during that lunch? David: I am a Christian that struggles to maybe notice when there are things like calling or phenomena that we might call blessing.
I think for the most part I do believe in their existence. It really feels like the closest someone like me can get to being spoken to when it comes from so far out of left field. But I think that kind of incredibly mundane situation is what really gets to me. Jonathan: Do you think that, both this way that you think about a divine occurrence occurs in your life, how this character of God has been visible in your life through this mundanity, that these have seeped into how you write your poems?
