CQTians showcase their literary flair in poetry open call

Eleven poems from the open call are being played on screen at the CQT lobby

In 2023, CQT was a venue for the poetry project “Not Only Lines” organised by the National University of Singapore Centre For the Arts (NUS CFA). Following the partnership, CQT launched a poetry call, inviting CQTians to submit their best literary pieces.

Eleven poems selected from the open call are now being played in rotation on screen at the CQT lobby. Contributions came from across the Centre: from professors to PhD students, and from our technical and admin teams. The poems’ authors are Alexander Hue, Alexander Ling, Berge Englert, Dai Jibo, Han Rui, Kwek Leong Chuan, Martin-Isbjorn Trappe, May Chee Loke, Mohammad Imran, Nayanthara Prathap, Nur Azizah, Peter Sidajaya, Valerio Scarani and Wu Shuin Jian.

The full set of poems can be viewed online at https://www.quantumlah.org/poetry.

During the open call, two poetry workshops were held at CQT. They were given by Singaporean writer and performer Cheyenne Alexandria Phillips. Cheyenne’s poem “What it means to be human” was part of NUS CFA’s “Not Only Lines” and was displayed at CQT during the project. During the workshops, Cheyenne guided participants through different poetry forms such as haikus, limericks and twin cinema poetry.

This is not CQT’s first literary initiative. The international Quantum Shorts competitions recently concluded its final run with three flash fiction winners. The short stories from the last three flash fiction competitions are being compiled into a forthcoming book. CQT has also previously hosted writers-in-residence Tania De Rozario and Eleanor Wong and comic-book author Otto Fong.