Lilla Torg: A Scandinavian Journey

By Heng Siok Tian, Toh Hsien Min, Yeow Kai Chai and Yong Shu Hoong

Poetry/Dakota Books/Paperback/88 pages/$18/Word Image4 out of 5 stars

The art of travelling with friends, unlike solo travel, is finding that golden mean between one’s ego and the collective interest. Friendships, after all, are forged and broken on the road.

The same principle applies to co-writing a book, which a quartet of Singapore poets – Heng Siok Tian, Toh Hsien Min, Yeow Kai Chai and Yong Shu Hoong – undertook in 2007 as they embarked on a road trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm.

The creative problem at the heart of collaboration is, as Yong puts it, “we stroll at different speeds. / And whether one leads or plays catch-up, our lines / are written separately as we cross different streets”.

The solution is to cook up a few constraints.

In many other domains, the word “constraints” would imply limitation. In literary terms, it can be a liberating possibility.

Understanding that a sonnet limits one to 14 lines and a set rhyme scheme, for example, can save a poet from the ego’s debilitating freedom on the blank page.