This is what we ought to do.

If we cannot make our writers rich or, OK, at the very least, if we cannot pay them enough, then we can give them the exposure, the support, and the opportunities for self-fulfillment they need to justify devoting their energies to writing at the cost of other, more personally lucrative jobs. 

In Singapore, “Poems on the MRT” has just been launched. Spearheaded by the National Arts Council (NAC), in partnership with SMRT Trains and Stellar Ace, the campaign, which runs until Oct. 30 next year, has turned the city’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) into a vehicle for local poetry. Each train has become a moving library, giving commuters the chance to immerse themselves in the rhyme and reason, the depths of emotions, the metaphorical takes on life’s issues, profound or mundane, by Singaporean poets, a testament to the richness of what is called Sing Lit or Singaporean literature.

This enviable campaign, produced by local literary non-profit Sing Lit Station (SLS), is showcasing excerpts from more than 100 Sing Lit poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil on trains on the East-West, North-South, and Circle Lines of the MRT. The multiple languages used by the poets handpicked for this yearlong, citywide activity are a nod to the cultural diversity of Singapore. As well as an invitation to contemplation, the poems are curated to bring beauty and upliftment to the everyday Singaporeans on their daily commute, through which, at least twice a day on a regular workweek, to and from the offices, they find themselves together by force of circumstances.

I remember checking out the bills posted on the subway in New York back in 2011, when I stayed two weeks commuting through the city’s underbelly to and from my hotel downtown on Wall Street and the Lincoln Center close to the Broadway District. A pang of envy restores itself in my chest whenever I recall that on the walls of every commuter train on the subway, there was nothing more commercial than a poster selling tickets to a ballet show or a quote from Joan Didion professing her love for New York City: “I was in love with the city the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.” At least back in 2011, based on what I personally saw, there were no merchandising materials from a telecommunication giant or a mall or a politician chest-beating with words like “I built this city” or “That seat you’re on was thanks to me.”

Back to present time in Singapore, the day after “Poems on the Metro” was launched on Oct. 31, there was a special one-day-only pop-up library at Dhoby Ghaut station, near the North-South line, offering up an exciting selection of Sing Lit titles for browsing, alongside free poetry zines, all handpicked to be worth reading in a cozy literary corner that was more like a tranquil retreat, designed to deepen appreciation among the commuters for Singapore’s literary landscape. The poems in Chinese, Malay, and Tamil also come with English translations to make them accessible and understandable to more and more commuters, including tourists and visitors.

“Poetry has the power to transport its readers beyond the everyday,” says Fiona Chan, chair and station director at SLS. “‘Poems on the MRT’ will inspire and intrigue commuters to find out more about our local poets, and the light that their work sheds on our unique Singapore culture.”

Until Dec. 31, during which the campaign is considered in its launch phase, commuters are invited to participate in the “Poems on the MRT” bingo competition on the website go.gov.sg/potm and its social media pages simply by downloading a digital copy of the bingo card, photographing three poems on the MRT panels that fit the card’s various categories, and uploading their submissions via a Google Form. The first three complete submissions are to win an attractive prize of a Kobo reader preloaded with Sing Lit titles. 

“Poems on the MRT” is just one of the three initiatives as part of NAC and SMRT’s three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) launched in 2023 to enliven spaces of commute through the arts. 

“We hope that ‘Poems on the MRT’ will offer commuters moments of beauty, respite, romance, contemplation, and good humor to inspire them every day,” says Aruna Johnson, director at Arts Ecosystem Group and NAC. “May they enjoy the poems, presented in our four official languages with accompanying English translations, and get to know the poets who make up our thriving, multicultural literary landscape.”

In 2014, I participated in the Singapore Writers Festival—How envious was I that the work of writers was so respected in this city nation! The festival, funded and supported by the government, was also not overrun by messages screaming commercial interests, such as banks or food chains or luxury brands. If there were any posters occupying dominant walls or tree trunks in the festival premises, they appealed to the poets, the novelists, the flash fictionists, the playwrights, and the memoirists among the organizers, guest speakers, and participants.  

This is what we need in a country like ours still grappling with identity, nationhood, and national pride—more room for our writers in the public space where, despite the lack of just compensation for their work, despite the lack of financial support to keep them from giving up the pen in pursuit of a more rewarding job, they might find that their sacrifices are worth it—because they are read and heard.