Carnival of Poetry (COP) is a monthly event organized by Migrant Writers of Singapore and supported by Sing Lit Station to establish bonding among the international community of poets and poetry enthusiasts. This event aims to celebrate the universality of literature, especially poetry, as a medium to communicate, unite, and celebrate humanity.

This 55th CoP Session was held on the 28th of May 2023 with the theme “Beauty of Aging”.
Aging is a natural process that happens to all of us, whether or not some people are seemingly ageless.
For this session, we had 5 poetry enthusiasts who shared their lovely written poems.

The first reader is Mr. Robert Yeo, 83 years old, who was awarded the Public Service Medal in 1991 for the promotion of drama in Singapore and in 2011 won the Southeast Asia Write Award The Best of Robert Yeo (2012) and The Singapore Trilogy (2022), a collection of his political plays. It was an incredible experience to witness the way he read his poem even though the theme is a difficult subject for him. The piece of poetry he presented touched the hearts of many people and I am one of them. His thoughts are truly amazing, It’s an honor for me to be able to moderate such a famous writer.

The second reader, Sari Wijayanti, is 40 years old who was born and raised in a small kampong in East Java. She is talented woman – apart from writing poetry she also does crafting. She is very good at many things. She loves to work in Singapore because of the diversity of people, cultures, and languages.
Writing for her is a bridge from the heart to connoisseurs of words and poetry is an image of it.
I met her when there was a slam poetry workshop by Sir Rahul and at other events.

The 3rd reader is Meenakshi. She is an educator and literature enthusiast. She has the pen name of “Jem Stones” on Facebook. She is a very inspirational woman. She writes to think and enjoys playing with words to make sense of the world around her. I was touched by her poem titled The Falling Leaves:
“As every leaf
Turns from green to gold
Floats to the ground brown
And into earth folds
So we return
To dust and ashes.”
I believe that we will all come to old age and all our hair will turn white all, our skin will wrinkle, all our appearance will be changed in due time, so be happy and enjoy life.

The 4th reader is Stephanie Raciles from Ilocos Norte, Philippines. I met her when she was studying in the Uplifters course online. She is very active but I never thought that we would meet again in MWS. I like her when she writes simple poetry, but powerful.

And last but not least, Sharon Spoorthy shared her poems through pre-recorded videos entitled “Beauty of aging” and “Time and tide waiteth for None”. Her poems are all about self love that connected to beauty. Despite how old we are, we have to value ourselves because beauty is not seen by the eye but in the heart.

Myself I was very nervous this session. I had little time to prepare because of long work hours. I hope my presentation was good for the high profile of our wonderful guest whose talents in the field of literature are amazing.

Even if I wasn’t perfect, I tried to do my very best and keep it positive. Thank you for the opportunity.
It is always an honor to be a moderator of Carnival of Poetry. More power to Migrant Writers of Singapore for organising such a meaningful event, to Sing Lit Station for its endless support, to the COP team, and for all the readers who accepted our invitation with open arms.

See you next month and looking forward to connect to more aspiring migrants, local and international writers.

Watch out for the next fascinating themes and guests!

Best Regards,
Nelie