Our 2021 Hawkers

First Place, $1500
“sounds like/tunog” by Christine Imperial

Published by TLDTD (Issue No. 1)

Third Place, $500
“Banyan Song” by Yasmin Mariam Kloth

Published by The Tiger Moth Review (Issue 3, 2020)

My grandmother 
made a home in the snow 
when she knew nothing 
of snow, transplanted from the shade 
of Banyan trees.

In the years after 
her husband died, her roots
grew low and dry.
She was easy to pluck
from her homeland, followed
children who’d already left
for new life.

I visited her there 
in her apartment in Montreal. 
Nothing had changed
in the years that expanded into spaces  
an ocean’s water could not fill. 
My daughter hugged her in the entry 
and she folded like a paper airplane 
at the waist.
She had never been someone’s 
great-grandmother before. 
This was too much love 
for her heart to give. 

The distance between 
their generations is not age. 
The distance is language and loss. 
The distance is the root 
of the Banyan tree, measured in meters 
from its leaves to the earth. 

My grandmother consumes 
this knowledge 
with a nose 
in my daughter’s hair. 

Honourable Mention
“Cassini’s Descent” by Alfonso Manalastas

Published by Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (Vol. 19 No. 2 Apr 2020)

The circular motion of an object
in orbit knows no beginnings
except for release. An absence
of starting points. A want. Its speed
governed by the lilt of the universe's
breathing. To be suspended in space,
buoyant, unflinching, does not
always mean stillness. Thirteen years,
a satellite staggered around Saturn
in endless loop—there are no finish
lines to cross here, just constant
running away. Let me tell you about
migratory birds: albatross, shorebird,
the common swift, how they travel
for months on end over violent
saltwater without ever stopping.
Let me tell you how they do this
in search of land, somewhere warm
to nestle their worn out bones in—
tilt sideways and home in on dry soil
What is built to last will last until
it doesn't. We mourn Cassini's
descent and call it death out of
a need to mourn: lament its collision.
Its amble gold. Refute claims
of its aloneness—the dark, solitary
silence it fumbled in. Drown out
the song of its weary whimpers,
a restless animal in pursuit of sleep.
And what is grief if not noise?

Honourable Mention
“Confessions to Lourdes Libres Rosaroso” by Miguel Barretto Garcia

Published by TLDTD (Issue No. 1)

Sal (n., Spanish) salt.

I.

Here, sa cusina, the sal confesses its sins:
Pasayloa ko. They say, a centavo inside
One’s bulsa has become more of a cliché,

Buslot ang bulsa, but asa ang cuarta
But blind, deep in the fishing grounds
Crowned with coral thorns, and sa gawas,

Ang coral sa among silingan, slinging to
Our dinner table an entire bandejado of
Dirt and coal, apan kuwang ni, the belly

Moans, kuwang ni kay we need more rice,
And ang kaha nahupsan na og tubig,
Pasayloa ko, says the sal, because what

Is left at the very bottom is a bed of
Knives, dismembered into heaps of silver,
Naa ma’y valor, tuod man, apan there is

No bread, there are only heads of men
Holding their postures upright like
A round of fruits for a rotting New Year.

II.

“Bag-ong kinabuhi” is no fortune cookie
Ug nibaga na lang ang balloon sa
Akong baga, and it did not burst,

It collapsed like broken windows, sharded
Sa ka-ma’yng laki of men. Kay wa
Ma’y pan lagi. There is a need for bread,

Because even in the land of the dead,
Tuslobun gihapon sa patay ang lapok
Og pan, dilaon gihapon nila sa bung-

Bong ang nagpabiling paglaum, pahiyom
Na lang, at least, there are edible bodies
Sitting on the table, dancing naked like

Children wanting to play with the monsoon.
Kay ang ulan, sulti sa akong Lola, are
Pods of shrunken angels coming to bathe

The chapped tongues of break back soil.
‘Saon man na ang pan kon wa’y
Tubig, she would say. Ma-uga ang tutunlan.

III.

And there would be no land to till.
Relentless, gahi’g ulo akong Lola—
Gipuno niya ang planggana until

The plenty softens into a mirror
Of ruptured dreams, apan gikan na
Sa singot, ana siya. No water ripples

Without fingers falling down as
Sweat. Learn from the Angels, she
Said. They are not there by Grace,

But the firmness of wings and
The stubbornness of ringlets. Pag-ingon
Ana if you want the ripple to echo

Your name on galvanized sin,
Pasayloa ko, says the sal. But when dry,
Raindrops scooped by the planggana

Are fallen angels heaped as a column
Of sin, because they turned away sa
Ilang Amahan, to be seasoned sa atong

Inun-unan, to live among the ordinariness
Of men, their ordinary troubles, and
Naordinahan na lang ang Obispo,

Apan ordinario lang gihapon
Ang dugo sa copa, the vino lamented.
Hain na man tawn ang Manluluwas?

IV.

The bread had asked, but roses had
Wilted after a thousand year wait
And ang laya had hardened into stone,

Hardened into bone ug giumom sa iro
Ang handumanan sa iyang dila, kay
Dugay na wa sa ere ang kagumkom

Na chismis sa atong silingan. Niagi
Ang kahilom, but then came the birds,
Wasting their talents by the window

Sill. Silian ni silang mga yawa, Lola
Yelled, Kuwang-kuwang na gani
Diri, muhangop pa gyud sa dyutayng

Pagkaon sa atong atubangan,
But every day is always an act of
Facing. The farce begins with

The focusing of the meal until each dish
Shivers and ghosts into an evaporating,
And what we have left is a mirage on

The table, a coping mechanism, a migraine
Kay di lalim sa tiyan mudug-ab og hangin,
Especially if all we have sa cusina for a meal

Is air. Ug paglaum. Kon isuka pa ni,
We are empty again. ‘Saon na lang ni,
Kining stubbornness will to breathe,

To be. Tubig. Tabang, tubig, kay giuhaw
Ako. Pasayloa ko, says the sal sa iyang
Cumpisal. Mao kini, ang akong suliran.

Annaliza Bakri holds a Master of Arts from the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the interplay of ideology and ethnicity in shaping the dominant narratives in literature, language education and the intersection between translation, history and humanity. Her writings, interviews and literary translations have been published by Prairie Schooner, Brooklyn Rail, Transnational Literature, s/pores, Budi Kritik (2019), Asymptote and the Centre for Stories. She edited and translated a poetry anthology featuring places in Singapore and her surrounding islands titled Sikit-Sikit Lama-lama Jadi Bukit (2017). She co-translated award-winning poet Alvin Pang's What Gives Us Our Names (2011) into Malay - Yang Menamakan Kita (2019).

Mikael Johani is a translingual poet. His works have appeared in Poems by Sunday, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Asymptote, AJAR. He's the author of We Are Nowhere And It’s Wow (Post Press, 2017) and organises Paviliun Puisi, a monthly spoken word night in Jakarta.