FOOD

FORUM

OPINION

BUSINESS

SPORT

TECH

Every day, as Bangladeshi supervisor Bikas Nath scrambles in

and out of vessel holds at the shipyard where he works, all he
sees around him is sweat and grime.
But in his mind's eye, the 22-year- old glimpses the vistas of his
homeland: dust storms, bright mustard flowers, the heady scent
of jackfruit in the air.
Late at night in his dormitory, he stays up trying to put his
memories and misery down on paper. "My life, my youth are
held hostage," he writes in Bengali. "And yet I long to love."
His words found voice at last on Sunday, when his poem Keno
Probashi? (Why Migrant?) won the first prize at the Migrant
Worker Poetry Competition.
The annual contest began in 2014 as a showcase of the literary
talents of 28 Bangladeshi and Indian migrant workers. It later
expanded to include other groups such as maids.
Due to an increasing audience, it was moved from a room in the
National Library to the National Gallery Singapore auditorium,
which was filled with close to 200 people on Sunday.
The contest is organised by a group of volunteers.

 Local advocacy groups, such as the Humanitarian Organization

for Migration Economics, Transient Workers Count Too and
Aidha, help to publicise it to workers.
Mr Bikas' $500 award, as well as the $300 and $200 prizes for
second and third places, were sponsored by the United States
Embassy, while the National Gallery Singapore provided the
venue for free.
This year, the contest received 70 entries in seven languages,
including Tamil, Chinese and Visayan, of which 17 were
shortlisted to be recited on Sunday.
The poets spoke of love, longing and loneliness. Many were
choked with emotion as they read.
Indonesian maid Nur Hidayati, 35, could not hold back her tears
as she read a poem for her four-year- old son, whom she left at
home five months ago to work in Singapore.
"I had to leave him behind," she said. "If not, how can I make a
better life for him?"
For others, the contest was a chance to express the unsaid.
Engineer Luo Lai Quan from China, who has been in Singapore
for a year, confessed his homesickness in a poem about his
mother.
"This is not something I've actually told her," said the 32-yearold in Mandarin. "On the phone, we talk about simple things,
like her health. I don't want her to worry."
Contest organising committee member Shivaji Das, 38, said it
plans to work harder next year on reaching out to groups such as
migrants from Myanmar and foreign sex workers, who, due to
the limitations of their work passes, stay in Singapore for only a
few months.

 The committee is also working with volunteers in other countries

to start similar migrant poetry contests. A Malaysian version has
been running for two years now, while an Abu Dhabi edition is
slated to start next year.
Poet Alvin Pang, who judged this year's entries along with
playwright Haresh Sharma and last year's Golden Point Award
Chinese poetry winner Chen Yu Yan, was heartened at the bigger
venue and bigger response.
Pang, 44, said: "I'm glad to see more and more people aren't
taking these workers for granted, but understand they come
from cultures and traditions that are deeper and more artistic
than our own."
He added that he was happy to see women made up two-thirds
of the entrants. "So many of us have domestic helpers, but don't
imagine they have an intellectual life. This blows that wide
open."
Indonesian maid Susilowati, another finalist, scribbles
fragments of poetry on the backs of supermarket receipts in her
scant free time.
"Most of the time, I just throw them into the dustbin," said the
26- year-old, who learnt of the contest through Aidha this year.
"Until now, I didn't know there was a poetry competition for
people like me."
To read the winning poems, go
to www.singaporeworkerpoetry.com