Twice the fun with upsized edition

Sonnets from the Singlish

Upsize Edition

By Joshua Ip

Math Paper Press

99 pages, S$17 at major bookstores

WHAT makes a new edition of a book truly new? Publishers sometimes slap on a foreword by Mr So-and-so, correct a couple of typos, and send it off to the printers.

Not Joshua Ip, or Math Paper Press for that matter. Ip's third edition of Sonnets from the Singlish (he calls it an "upsize") doubles the material with 44 more poems, and retails at the same price. Why not a whole new book, you ask? Well, the original was the co-winner of the Singapore Literature Prize 2014 (Ip shares the limelight with The Viewing Party by Yong Shu Hoong); the title has also sold two print runs totalling 2,000 copies (a valiant effort, for local writers). Hence, it probably makes sense to cash in on the brand recognition.

As with the first 44, the new sonnets are breezy, digestible renditions of the traditional form (famously used by Shakespeare). Literary snobs may turn their noses up at some of Ip's earthier references, which include videogames (StarCraft and The Witcher), Jack Neo films ("us motley ah-boys grew to men"), and even Miley Cyrus ("i came in like a wrecking ball").

His relatable references are part of the appeal. But dig a little deeper and the profundity comes through. In "ultimate warrior", Ip pens an irreverent elegy to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star James Brian Hellwig aka "Warrior". He imagines an afterlife where Hellwig (and his "overdone guyliner") ends up in the Chinese courts of hell, and speculates on the wrestler's potential roles in a Peking opera for the dead:

"you're no dan (female), too large for sheng (male), and we've been told it would be 'racist' to make you play the chou (clown)."

It sounds flippant, but Ip is drawing startling similarities between Peking opera and WWE - both feature painted faces, elaborate costumes (some might say garish), and choreographed fights. What makes the former high art today, and the latter a guilty pleasure with the masses? Then there's "tradition", set in a postapocalyptic world with no more cell towers. Its superstitious denizens write poems which do not "exceed the old tradition of one hundred and forty characters."

He's talking about Twitter of course; just as his characters stick blindly to some long-forgotten social media quirk, Ip insists on using the sonnet form. Ip's greatest strength lies in crafting these absurd scenarios, which vividly and concisely capture the gist of his philosophising. And, as with any music record, a couple of fillers are to be expected - if Ip produces such good hits with so little time, we can expect to look forward to more when he lets his talent simmer.