Edwin Thumboo - Poetry and Influence

Poetry and Influence

In the 1950s, Thumboo wrote mostly lyrical poetry based on personal experiences. Displaying the influence of the English literary tradition on him, they dealt with aesthetic and metaphysical themes. By the mid-1970s, he had shifted his focus to the public sphere, believing that poets of post-independence Singapore should work towards creating a national literature. Singapore's national life was a key subject of his collection of poetry Gods Can Die (1977), and it has been said that the subsequent anthologies Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993) "established his reputation as a national poet committed to articulating a cultural vision for a multicultural Singapore". Thumboo is often dubbed Singapore's unofficial poet laureate because of his poems with nationalistic themes, notably 9 August – II (1977), and Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) which was published in the anthology of the same name. Ulysses, which references an iconic statue of a beast with the upper body of a lion and the tail of a fish called the Merlion that faces Marina Bay, was inspired by the use of Irish mythology and history by W. B. Yeats. The Irish poet has asserted a significant influence on Thumboo, as Thumboo recognizes parallels between Ireland's nationalistic struggle and Singapore's breakaway from colonialism. He describes himself as a myth-inspired poet, and sees myths as ancient narratives and structures which provide a stable point of reference for a multicultural society. Ulysses has prompted other Singaporean poets such as Alfian Sa'at, Vernon Chan, David Leo, Felix Cheong, Gwee Li Sui, Koh Buck Song, Lee Tzu Pheng, Alvin Pang and Daren Shiau to write their own Merlion-themed verses; it is often joked that one cannot be regarded as a true Singapore poet until one has written a "Merlion poem". A copy of Ulysses is installed on a plaque near the statue.

History also features strongly in Thumboo's poetry. He has said:

... History enters my writing, as it ought to enter the writing of others, because of its importance in our lives. I go back to this point about the historical moments we occupy. As a former colony, a multi-racial one, created by the British, we need history for a sense of things; to re-inscribe ourselves; discover and, in certain areas, define ourselves as individuals, as groups in a multi-racial society. They give you a sense of their belonging, which also happens to be mine. They give you an inherited identity that you put together by being conscious of what you have absorbed, or taken. I live in Singapore; I have likes and dislikes, a set of interests, a set of values, a set of responsibilities and so on. History I see as fully inclusive, fully in terms of one's personal limits. And it includes beliefs, and anything of significance ... nothing is irrelevant.

In August 2008, The Straits Times said that Thumboo's "most powerful legacy" was "spearheading the creation of a Singapore literature in English", although Thumboo himself downplayed his pioneering role by commenting: "There were not that many people writing in 1965, so you had the feeling that you had to create something. But you don't stand there and say, 'Look, I am a pioneer'. There is a need to do something, to help go about creating something, and you do it." He compiled and edited some of the first anthologies of English poetry from Singapore and Malaysia, including The Flowering Tree (1970), Seven Poets (1973) and The Second Tongue (1979). He was also the general editor of two multilingual anthologies sponsored by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Committee of Culture and Information entitled The Poetry of Singapore (1985) and The Fiction of Singapore (1990). In addition to the collections of poetry already mentioned, he has published two volumes of poetry for children called Child's Delight (1972), and another collection called Friend: Poems (2003). Still Travelling, an anthology consisting of almost 50 poems, was published in 2008.

On 29 October 2001, at the launch of a book entitled Ariels: Departures and Returns – Essays for Edwin Thumboo at the Singapore Art Museum, Associate Professor Robbie Goh said:

... Edwin Thumboo’s dual discourses – the analytical and theoretical discourse of the scholar, and the emotive and associative discourse of the poet – enable him to capture the flow of our experience, and to present it in a variety of different ways, accessible to a variety of individuals. ... I've come to see that Edwin Thumboo writes incessantly, because he is driven to communicate something of a better world; he rolls his sleeves up to act, because he is impatient with waiting for this world to change; and he forges friendships, because these represent the hope for a better world even within this imperfect one. His impact cannot be measured by words alone, but words – the tools of his own trade – may capture the "covenant" of his ideas and values.