Oct 18, 2021
In this week’s Side B episode Elizabeth is given a run for her money with the incredible spoken word poetry of Singapore’s Victoria Lim. Religion, by Victoria Lim, is the first spoken word piece to be featured on I Offer Poetry and since it is a lesser known piece, it required our host to do a lot more supposition and exploration of her own feelings and relationship to the poem.
Poet Victoria Lim spent her childhood in Penang, Malaysia and moved to Singapore when she was nine. She began writing poetry in 2010 and became Singapore’s National Poetry Slam Champion in 2013. Lim is a theatre practitioner and is especially well known for her contributions to performance poetry. She is a founding member of the all-female spoken word collective, Sekaliwags, and has performed at Lit-Up! Festival (Singapore) and Cooler Lumpur Festival (Malaysia).
Throughout this episode we engage with themes of growing up, indulging complacency, and what it means to be a modern romantic partner. Elizabeth sounds off on how she also sees the temptation to use religion as an escape from heavy thoughts and daily patterns.
“I love sharing contemporary poets, because I think
that's something we miss out on. I've mentioned before I think we
do a lot of reading the poetry of, quite honestly, dead white men
in the American education system. And I think it's exciting to find
new voices, but especially contemporary voices, and remind
ourselves that poetry is a living breathing thing. People are still
writing poetry.”
- Elizabeth Ellson
Timestamps:
00:00:48 Poem Reading (Elizabeth)
00:04:42 Author Info
00:06:30 Elizabeth’s Relationship to the Poem
00:25:10 Pause / Poem Reading (Elizabeth)
00:30:17 Reflection & Invitation to Write Us!
Poem & Links:
Religion by Victoria Lim (© 2015)
The Icarus Delusion (V. Lim Poem)
Four & Twenty Blackbirds (Nursery Rhyme History)
I.O.P. Lexicon:
Banal: (adjective) devoid of freshness or originality, commonplace
Where to find our host Elizabeth:
@ellsonelizabeth | Twitter
Where to find us:
@iofferpoetry | Instagram
@iofferpoetry | Twitter
Produced & Edited by John Campione:
Music @zacharymanno | Art @sammycampioneart