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Nurturing Young Singapore Writers
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 | 10:45 PM | 0 comments
Recent newspaper articles have discussed the
big drop in number of students taking Literature as an O Level subject. I mourn
this trend and feel that more should be done to encourage students to take it
as a subject, as I fully believe that the aforementioned subject is wonderfully
enriching and a great way to learn about the world.
However,
on the related note of nurturing budding writers (who could very well be publishing
works that will make up Singapore Literature in the future!), I'm pleased to
say that there are definitely avenues and programs that encourage youths to
express themselves through writing, be it novels, poems, or plays.
One
example of an event that allows one to express oneself is the Singapore Poetry SlamTM.
What
is Poetry SlamTM? It is the competitive art of writing and
performing poetry, staged as a friendly 3-round contest with prizes. Over 150,000
students and the general public have participated and watched Poetry SlamTM
in Singapore since 2003.
There
is also a youth section for this event, called the National Youth Poetry Slam
League (NYPSL) Championship, which was launched in 2006 by Word Forward Limited
with the help of the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts.
In fact, here is a video of the best slam of NYPSL 2009 for your interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwoRX2msEE
In fact, here is a video of the best slam of NYPSL 2009 for your interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwoRX2msEE
Yet
another event would be the All In! Young Writers Media Festival, an annual
festival for aspiring writers between the ages of 16 and 25.
Various workshops
and seminars are included in the programme of this event, with the purpose of
enabling young writers to meet peers and established practitioners, impart knowledge
and skills to these youths, and last but not least spark inspiration and
creativity in them, hopefully pushing them to embark on their future careers.
Hopefully, such events as those mentioned above will inspire and encourage more youths to form the next generation of Singapore writers, following in the footsteps of those like the 5 writers we have chosen to cover in our blog.