Side B - On Poetry Viewing Religion As An Opt Out

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)

Clotheshorse (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

[e-mail]

 

Produced & Edited by John Campione:

Campiaudio.com   |   @campiaudio

[e-mail]

 

Music @zacharymanno | Art @sammycampioneart