Featuring: Malaysian Poets

For National Poetry Month, we want to celebrate the source of the woven words themselves, the poets!

For this reason, we reached out to several Malaysian poets and asked if we could share one of their best written works and they responded with these eight poems for you to enjoy.

We are hoping that this poetry appreciation campaign will serve as a reminder that poetry is an important part of our culture and that with it, we can bridge the gap between the writers and artists of our community. In fact, feel free to use these poems as inspiration for our #DrawThisPoem Creative Challenge! 

With that, we are proud to feature our lovely poets and their poems:

A Sarawakian-born storyteller at heart and a teacher by trade, Chloe Ling’s love for stories spreads over several different mediums including visual arts, public speaking, poems, and dance.

This poem, PURPLE, included in her book, Cartography, came to her when she was going through a challenging period in her life and she realised that “the lowest moments in our lives are just that- moments. And moments are only temporary, this too shall pass.”

At the heart of what she does is the firm belief that our stories shape the world around us by bringing us together. You can find her @chloelinginmotion on Instagram.

A multidisciplinary storyteller and a creative coach, Dhinesha Karthigesu is also the creator and host of The Creative Curry Podcast. He is also Malaysia’s first and only National Poetry Slam Champion, currently working on his first book, his second short film and is writing his third play.

This piece titled, “HOPEFUL?” was born from questioning what hope is beyond a pandemic, or in his words, “What is hope in ways that are small and minute and personal?”

You can find him at @itsdhinesha on Instagram and at dhinesha.com.

A 26 year old English teacher paving her way through poetry and car-ride musings, Farah Aiman wrote this poem titled, “if tomorrow were a place” by imagining the tomorrow she’d personally love to live in.

Follow Farah Aiman through her husband's Instagram @_jackmalik

An Ampang born and raised Advertising Design student, Hanna Anuar makes collages, Blackout Poetry, and pets cats for good luck. The poem, “New Year” was written after a night out with her friends because going out on New Year’s Eve was something of an unusual activity for her.

You can find her at @giralka on Instagram.

A Malaysian writer and a poet, Jack Kin Lim graduated with a degree in Creative Writing, and has read his poetry in Penang, Kuching, and Kuala Lumpur. He is also the creative director and host of KITA!, an arts-anthology podcast featuring poetry, short fiction, and music from local and regional writers.

Jack lives in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, works as a freelance copywriter and tweets at @JackKinLim.

Also the one writing this blog post because she works here, Samantha Lim writes when necessary, if not she likes to spend her spare time in absolute leisure. Having had her work staged at Short+Sweet Malaysia and read aloud at the Georgetown Literary Festival, she plans to continue her artistic pursuits through a variety of mediums.

This poem looks at how sharing shoes can be kinda gross but it's a little better when you know the shoes belong to someone you love.

Having had his poetry featured on The KITA! Podcast and adda, Yee Heng Yeh’s short scripts have also been selected for the Short+Sweet Festival, winning Best Script in Penang (2019).

The idea for this poem came about over long hours of staring out the windows of moving vehicles, “To be the one moving, but to see the world moving instead. And also how a simple thing like a window could hold so much.”

Currently working as a translator and a proofreader while writing in his spare time, you can find him on Twitter at @HengYeh42.

A spoken word poet/rapper, Zhafir is trying to read more and RMO means no excuses. He dedicates this poem, “Old Flame” to his fiancee Zafira, who “always makes me strive to be a better person just by being herself around me.”

Check him out on @muhammad.zhafir on Instagram and @helpzhafir on twitter

Thank you to all these poets who are kind enough to share their works with us! We urge you to follow these creators on their social media, leave them plenty of likes and comments, and #DrawThisPoem! Read more about it here.

With that, we hope their poems can inspire you to create your own art in response!

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What do you think of poetry? Make sure to join our #DrawThisPoem Creative Challenge if you are inspired! Remember to tag us @mosseryco on Instagram!