In conjunction with International Women’s Day this year and their tagline #ChoosetoChallenge for spoken word poets, this one’s for all of you ladies! More on IWD 2021… And who has inspired all of this, I suspect? A young lady by the name of Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of Joe Biden as President & Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States of America.a
So here goes…
Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Seas
This is an open call to women of Southeast Asian heritage, no matter where you’re living now. I’d love to hear your stories and if you’d like to be featured on upcoming podcast, Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Seas, contact me. It’s my hope and desire to turn this project into an open source archive for women of Southeast Asian heritage to share their stories.
I get the ball rolling with my own stories, readings of poems and interviews with mum in the first season of the podcast. Listen to the work-in-progress here: http://listenbyheart.webprojx.com/.
Spoken Word reveries
From 2003-2012, I was actively writing, performing and organising poetry & music gigs in the Kuala Lumpur circuit – over 500 gigs! Together with Jerome Kugan, Sabahan singer songwriter and then editor of a lifestyle magazine KLUE, we formed Wayang Kata in collaboration with the British Council Malaysia and Apples & Snakes UK to showcase performance poetry. Those were great days of unraveling stories from so many interesting layers of society and cultures.
I had an idea back in 2006 to collect and curate stories in the form of poetry, song and short stories for an audio book to be titled Rooms. I had two original performance poetry pieces performed at The Actors’ Studio Bangsar, and collected a few recordings from other women writers and poets, but never published it. That idea never left me, it was always there, just waiting for the right time and I think this year may be the right time to bring it alive.
More Spoken Word Archives
In 2012-2013, I was first a volunteer, then later on invited as Host/Facilitator of Spoken Word events at the Georgetown Literary Festival.
- Wayang Kata VIII at the GLTF 2012: view program
- Wayang Kata XI at the GLTF 2013: view program
- Poetry Lunch Marathon at the GLTF 2015: view program
Cover photo credit: David Cheah | Location: Hard Rock Hotel Penang | 2018